


As We Roll Down This Unfamiliar Road

by GLWilliams97



Series: Home [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Awesome Michelle Jones, BAMF Pepper Potts, Crushes, F/M, Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Just Peter rightfully telling him off, Ned Leeds is a Good Bro, Not really team Cap bashing, Panic Attacks, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker is Tony Stark's Biological Child, Peter Parker is a Little Shit, So maybe a little team Cap bashing, Sokovia Accords, Tag, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2020-07-30 18:55:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 47,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20102014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GLWilliams97/pseuds/GLWilliams97
Summary: “…Hawkeye and Antman…” Peter says under his breath. Peter clears his throat a little and speaks a little louder, “you’re Hawkeye and Antman”.Scott’s face changes from being slightly confused to being excited, “you know who I am!”Clint squints at Peter, looking the boy up and down, “who are you?”“Uh…” Peter nervously looks over at Tony.Tony sighs and motions for Peter to come and stand next to him. He throws his arm around Peter’s shoulders, a move to comfort both of them, and also give himself a boost of confidence. “This is Peter”.Peter gives a shy wave and Clint raises an eyebrow, “and Peter is?”“Peter is the main reason why I care about you getting to see your kids…” Tony takes in a breath to relax himself. While he doesn’t trust Barton…he does trust that the man wouldn’t tell anyone about Peter being his son. Barton knows what it’s like to keep your kids a secret to keep them safe. “I wouldn’t want to be kept away from my kid either”.---This is the follow up of my first story 'Hold On, To Me As We Go'. I suggest reading that one first.





	1. Hawkeye and Antman

**Author's Note:**

> This took a little longer then I planned but here we are!!! 
> 
> I'm pretty please with how this turned out and I hope you guys feel the same way. I'm sorry if there are any mistakes, I have gone over the chapter quickly, but I will go over it again tomorrow to fix any I've left. I just really wanted to get this chapter out for you guys now.
> 
> Also, if anyone was wondering when this story takes place, I'm placing the time of year to be between February and March.

Peter stretches out his body, his arms reaching above his head and hitting the headboard, as he wakes up. His body feeling well-rested for the first time since finding out that Mr Sta-Tony was his biological father, as the past few days his mind just wouldn’t shut off long enough for him to get a decent night’s sleep.

The good night’s sleep was probably because he finally talked things out with Mr…with Tony last night. It definitely felt good to get some things off his chest, to have the man take away some of his fears and worries. There were still somethings they needed to talk about, but Peter had just felt so emotionally drained from everything, that Tony had told him to head to bed and that he’d text May that he’d be spending the night. He was so tired that he didn’t even bother to argue that ten o’clock was to early for him to go to bed or try to argue that Spider-Man need to go out and stop some muggers because that was when the real crimes started happening. The idea of his head hitting a soft pillow and his body being wrapped in a comfy duvet was just too appealing.

He pats around the bedside table for his phone, and once he grabs it, he’s surprised to see that it’s only 7:30. He’s never woken up that early on a Saturday before. It’s like an un-written rule for all teenagers to sleep in as late as possible on the weekends. Then again, he did go to bed at ten, which is very early for him, so maybe it shouldn’t be that surprising that he’s up this early.

“Good morning Peter. Boss would like me to inform you that breakfast is ready” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice brings Peter out of his thoughts.

“Morning F.R.I”, Peter sits up, rubbing a hand over his face to wipe away the sleep. “I’ll be right there”.

Peter shuffles out of his bed. He doesn’t bother getting dressed since it’s Saturday morning and its only breakfast, so he’s only in a pair of flannel pyjama bottoms and a t-shirt. He fumbles around as he pulls some fuzzy socks on his feet to keep them warm against the cool floor.

He leaves his room and heads towards the kitchen where he hears Miss Potts and Mr…Tony. He’s really going to have to try and get out of the habit of calling the man ‘Mr Stark’ now. Though he’s not sure if he’s ready to call him ‘dad’ yet. Sure, he’s accidently called him ‘dad’ to May once…_maybe_ twice…and yes, he does see Tony as a father figure…but Peter’s pretty sure that it’s a little to soon, after everything this past week, to be pulling out the ‘D’ word.

Anyway…would Mr S-Tony even want to be called ‘dad’? The man seems like he’s happy with being his father, but would calling him ‘dad’ make him feel uncomfortable?

It’s probably best to wait a while before using that word. Let them both get used to their new relationship.

Their new relationship.

Father and son…wow.

Even nearly a week later and it’s still unbelievable and mindboggling. He has a father, who is alive. A father who he used to dress up as for Halloween…he hopes May doesn’t still have those photos.

Are things going to be awkward now? Last night was a little awkward…but that was mainly because of him running away the last time he saw the man, but it quickly became less awkward and began to feel more like normal.

Peter really hopes that this doesn’t change anything between them. That it doesn’t become an uncomfortable silence between them as they awkwardly work in the lab, being overly aware of what the other is doing.

Just the thought of their time in the lab becoming like that sends a tight panic through Peter’s body. He loves spending time with Tony in the lab and he doesn’t want to ruin that or ruin any time that they spend together.

…He’s just got to try and act like normal and hopefully everything will be okay.

Peter braces himself as he enters the kitchen. Miss Potts is sat on one of the stools around the kitchen island drinking a cup of coffee, dressed immaculately of course, and Tony is stood on the opposite side of the island, leaning over the countertop with his forearms, wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and some cargo pants. Both of them turn their heads to look at him as he walks into the room, making him freeze in his step and he’s sure he looks like a deer caught in headlights.

“Good morning Peter” Pepper smiles sweetly, taking a sip from her coffee. The boy’s hair is currently just a mop of untamed curls, and she thinks it’s absolutely adorable.

“Morning Miss Potts” Peter is happy that his voice comes out normal.

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, it’s just Pepper” she shakes her head, but her smile remains so he knows that she isn’t annoyed with him.

Peter grins, “old habits die hard”. He walks further into the room and sits on the stool next to Pepper.

“Well considering the new…revelation, maybe we could try and get the name Pepper to come out of your mouth instead. I think it might be a little weird to keep calling me Miss Potts”, there was no tiptoeing around subjects when Pepper was involved, she likes to get straight to the point. Though a gentle smile is still on her face as a way to keep Peter comfortable with the conversation.

Peter bites his lip and nods, his grin turning into a shy kind of smile, “you have a point. Although it’s going to feel weird _not_ calling you Miss Potts because…well you’re _Miss Potts_”.

“And what am I? Chopped liver?” Tony interrupts.

“Yes” both Peter and Pepper answer, with smirks on their faces.

“Unbelievable!” Tony throws his hands up in the air, “this is not allowed. You two are not allowed to gang up on me”.

“Don’t be so dramatic” Pepper turns to Tony.

“I’m Tony Stark. Everything I do is dramatic”.

“Don’t I know it” Pepper sighs, as she takes a look at her watch to check the time. She quickly finishes of the rest of her coffee and gracefully slides off her stool, “I’ll leave you boys to, mostly likely, play in the lab because I have to head to work”. She walks around to kiss Tony goodbye before giving Peter a kiss on the side of his head as she passes by him to leave, “be careful”.

“When aren’t I?...wait, don’t answer that!” Tony shouts after Peppers retreating figure as Peter tries and fails to cover up his sniggering, “hey”, Tony turns to Peter, “like you’re any better ‘Mr-I-got-bit-by-a-radioactive-spider-during-my-school-field-trip-and-then-decided-to-become-a-superhero’. Careful isn’t in your vocabulary”.

Peter pulls an offended face, “I feel like the ‘getting bit by the radioactive spider’ part was more Oscorps lack of safety than mine”.

Tony pauses for a moment, as though he’s thinking about it, and then nods, “I suppose you’re right”. He turns around and pulls out a plate from the oven that had been keeping Peter’s extra-large breakfast warm, “here, eat up Underoos”.

Tony had been up about an hour earlier than Peter, having woken up with Pepper, and had made omelettes for breakfast as that was one of the few meals he was trusted to make. He could make omelettes, pancakes and a few Italian dishes, and that was about it for foods that required cooking, unless they wanted to burn the kitchen down.

For the first time since Tuesday night…or more likely early Wednesday morning, he had actually gone to bed and gotten some much needed sleep…and also a shower. Pepper had refused to share a bed with him till he washed. Which was fair since he hadn’t come out of his lab in about three days because he had been upset about Peter not coming.

Though before he showered and slept, he texted May to let her know where her nephew was, so she didn’t worry. Then he went to check on Peter, to make sure the teen was getting the sleep he also needed. Which he was. Peter was fast asleep.

Tony couldn’t help himself; he stood in the doorway and just watched his son sleep for a few minutes. _His son_. It felt so…he didn’t know how to describe it. He just still can’t get over the fact that he has a child. A child, who was in his home and sleeping peacefully. He just felt…full. Full of so many different emotions.

Happy, scared, thankful, hopeful, vulnerable, optimistic, content, anxious, insecure, amazed, worried, eager…love.

So many emotions. It felt like his heart was going to explode.

Peter had been laying on his back, mouth open, with some drool already coming from his mouth. His son must have been completely out of it because he didn’t wake up when he walked into the room and reached out a hand to brush some of Peter’s curls from his forehead.

He left soon after that because he didn’t want to risk waking the boy up.

He showered away his three-day old stink, then he quickly snuggled in next to Pepper in bed. It shouldn’t have been surprising how easy sleep came to him last night, with his mind feeling a lot more at ease and his body relaxed. He slept for almost eight straight hours, which is basically a record for him. So, he was actually feeling quite refreshed today.

Peter shoves a large forkful of one of his omelettes into his mouth, “fank oo Mista Tark”, he says with his mouth still full of food.

Tony raises an eyebrow, “okay…first, take small bites or you’re going to choke. Second, don’t talk with your mouth full. And third, I think maybe we can stop with the Mr Stark stuff. You know…considering…”.

Peter swallows his mouthful of food and nervously looks up at Tony, “y-yeah…of course…yeah”. God, he hasn’t stuttered in front of Tony for months. Now he’s back to his dilemma from earlier. Does he or doesn’t he call him dad? The answer is still the same, he can’t right now because he doesn’t want to make things weird with Tony. “Thanks for the breakfast…Tony”, Peter gives a nervous smile, which Tony copies, before eating a small forkful of omelette.

Tony can’t deny that Peter calling him ‘Tony’ instead ‘dad’ hurt, because it did. May had said that Peter had once called him ‘dad’ to her, so he may have gotten his hopes up in the thought that Peter would call him that. That Peter would see him as his dad.

Perhaps the teen just needed a little more time to feel comfortable in calling him ‘dad’… That was probably it. This time he isn’t going to let his self-hatred talk him into thinking Peter doesn’t want him, because that isn’t true. The fact that Peter is here now, eating breakfast in his home, shows that Peter does want him in his life. He just needs a bit more time to adjust, and Tony is happy to give Peter all the time in the world.

He’ll earn the title ‘dad’, no matter how long it takes him.

Tony pours himself a cup of coffee, because no matter how much sleep he’s had, he basically needs coffee to live. He’s almost positive that if he didn’t have five litres of coffee a day…he’d go into some sort of caffeine withdrawal and would probably die from the lack of coffee in his system.

Peter scrapes up the last bits of his breakfast, clearing his plate like he does for all meals thanks to his metabolism, and quickly finishes eating. He then looks up at Tony, who is already watching him.

“I was wondering about…living arrangements?” Peter says nervously, “because as nice as it would be to spend more time with you Tony…I…May, she’s-“.

“It’s okay Peter, I’m not going to take you away from May. She’s your family” Tony tells him, and Peter relaxes in his seat. “But…I talked to May and we thought, if you’re okay with it, that maybe you’d like to have a couple more days here…with me. You’ll still live with May of course, you’d just spend a few more nights here sometimes”.

Peter nods his head, a shy smile on his lips, “yeah…that-that’d be great”.

Tony feels himself relax now, with Peter confirming that he _did_ want to spend more time with him, “we were thinking that on the weekends that you already spend here, instead of Happy picking you up on Saturday, you could come here after school on the Friday” Peter nods, happy with the idea, as Tony continues, “we figured that once we all got a little more…settled, we could find a few more days here and there that you could spend here”.

“…like maybe lab Wednesday? Instead of going home, I could stay here” Peter suggests, “I’d just have to get up a little earlier on Thursday to get to school”.

Tony can’t stop the grin that makes its way onto his face, “that sounds like a great idea, though we’ll have to run it by May first, which reminds me. After I texted your aunt last night, she said you could stay the weekend if you want. I figured we could get some training in that we couldn’t do last weekend and maybe spend a bit of time in the lab”.

Peters face fills with happiness, before he remembers one other thing he needs to ask about, “you’re Tony Stark”.

Tony stares at Peter with confusion, “…yeah Underoos, I’m Tony Stark”, Tony suddenly frowns, “did you hit your head last night on patrol before you came here? I didn’t get an alert from the ‘Scrapped Knee’ protocol”.

Peter bats away Tony’s hands as the man tries to grab his head to look for any bumps, “no, I’m fine. I just meant…you’re Tony Stark…you’re famous. The press…they don’t leave you alone and-and when they find out that I’m…you know…they’re going to-“.

“They’re not going to do anything. Or at least not for a while” Tony interrupts Peter’s rambling, “you’re right about the press not leaving me alone, they don’t leave anyone alone incase they miss a story, and I don’t want that for you. Unfortunately, it will be impossible for us to hide you from the press forever, but we’re going to kept it quiet for as long as we can so that you can have a normal life”. Tony pauses for a second, “or as normal of a life that a teenaged boy who’s also a web-slinging vigilante can have”, he gives Peter a reassuring look.

Peter nods, feeling relieved once more. If everyone was to find out he was Tony Starks son…the others at school would never leave him alone…although the one upside to them knowing would be that Flash couldn’t tease him about lying about knowing Tony Stark. The look on Flash’s face would almost be worth telling everyone. _Almost_.

There would also be the press who wouldn’t leave him alone if they found out, and how could he be Spider-Man if he had people following him?

He’s always been a private person. So, suddenly having people want to know everything about him is going to be horrible.

He’s not stupid. He does know that eventually they would have to tell everyone that Tony Stark has a son. He knows that, and it scares him, but there is no escaping it because he’s a famous person’s kid. Maybe in a few years it may not seem so daunting, but there is no way he could handle it right now or any time soon. Especially when he’s still coming to terms with all of it himself.

So, if they can hold it off for as long as possible, he’ll be grateful and take as much time as he can get.

“I told Ned, about this…is that alright?” Peter asks.

“He’s your guy in the chair, right? Your best friend” Tony’s proud that he remembered that, “of course it’s alright. You can tell anyone you want, as long as you trust them… That includes your little girlfriend, MJ”.

Peter groans, throwing his head back, “Tony! Stop!”

* * *

Peter and Tony spent the weekend as they normally would. They spent a few hours training and then relaxed in front of the telly to watch a few movies. On the Saturday, because they had both been up early, they managed to squeeze in some time in the lab. Although not much got done because the bots wouldn’t leave Peter alone.

For the first hour they were in the lab Peter was pretty much stuck in the middle of the bot’s as the three of them had him surrounded. Tony had found it hilarious and choose to sit and watch his bots circling his son, while Peter attempted and failed to escape their circle. Dum-E kept trying to shove one of his oil smoothies into Peter’s hand, U kept tugging on Peter’s hoodie and Butterfingers kept trying to pat Peter on the head.

Tony made sure to get lots of photos.

He also informed Peter, when the boy started getting frustrated and asked why the bots were acting like that, that they saw him as their little brother. Which made Peter turn slightly red and he lost all frustrations with the bots and he let them continue their smothering of him.

Eventually, Tony had to threaten the bot’s with being turned in to scraps if they didn’t give Peter some space. They did so, but not without several whiney beeps.

Once they got to working, both in the lab and during training, Peter was pleasantly surprised, apart from the first couple of minutes, just how not awkward it was. Everything went just how it normally would, and Peter felt so relieved that nothing had really changed.

Watching movies in the evening felt awkward for a little longer because Peter was more aware of how close he and Tony sat next to each other, but he was soon engrossed in the movie, so all insecurities disappeared.

The weekend just went really well, and it made Peter feel a lot more secure in this whole situation and made most of his worries disappear. It was still odd to think about the fact that he has a parent that was alive, it’ll probably take ages for him to get his head around it, but he can see this working out.

Tony was very pleased with how the weekend went. He tried to keep it relaxed and as normal as possible for Peter, to make him more comfortable, and he’s pretty sure it worked. Peter seemed like he was at ease and like he enjoyed the weekend. Which is what Tony wants because if Peter has a good first weekend as father and son, then he’ll keep coming back.

When Happy came to pick Peter up Sunday evening some of the nervousness returned because Peter wasn’t sure whether he was supposed to hug Tony goodbye or not. In the end they ended up awkwardly standing in front of one another, neither one making a move, with Happy standing at the elevator rolling his eyes at the pair of them. Eventually Peter just awkwardly waves at Tony and throws a “see you on Wednesday, Tony” over his shoulder as he walks to the elevator.

Tony is left standing with a grin on his face.

* * *

Peter and Ned slide into their usual seats for lunch.

“You were radio silent all weekend Peter, what were you up to? Was it Spider-Man?” Ned’s voice is gleeful and definitely not as quiet as it should have been.

“Shhh! Ned!” Peter whips his head around, checking to see if anyone overheard.

No one did, of course, because no one pays attention to the two losers sat in the corner. The closest person to them was MJ, who is sat a few chairs away, and is engrossed in reading. She looks so pretty when she’s lost in one of her many books, her face slightly pinched in concentration.

“It wasn’t…that” Peter lowers his voice, pulling his thoughts away from MJ and back to Ned, “I was with…my-with Mr Stark”.

“Did you talk things out with him about the…’I am your father’ thing?” Ned leans in closer, eager to hear what his best friend has to say.

Peter nods, “yeah. We talked things over, and you and May were right, I was worrying about things unnecessarily”. Peter’s mouth starts turning up into a small smile, “he uh, he wants to give this a go. We spent the weekend together. I was a little worried that spending time together would be awkward now…but it wasn’t, not much. Only a little to start with, but then we were working together like normal”.

“Told you everything would be fine”.

“It’s still surreal though” Peter fiddles with his fingers, “I have a dad”.

“A dad whose Ironman” Ned grins, his voice rising slightly.

“Shh” Peter hisses.

“Sorry, it’s just…have I mentioned recently how I’m so glad you’re my best friend?”

“Most days” Peter shakes his head, but the grin stays on his face.

“So, what did you do at the compound?” Ned asks, ready to absorb everything Peter tells him.

Peter rambles on about everything he and Tony did over the weekend, especially in the lab. It takes Ned all of his willpower to keep quiet when Peter tells him about the bot’s and their new obsession with him.

The conversation eventually turns to what new movies will be out soon and which Lego set are they going to build next. At some point, during that, Peter finds himself looking over at MJ. He’s contributing less and less into the conversation with Ned as he focuses more on MJ. She has a curl of hair that’s fallen from her ponytail and is right in front of her face, she doesn’t seem bothered by it though. She just carries on reading with her eyes scrunched up in her normal MJ way.

Peter watches as MJ places a bookmarker into her book as she puts her book down and picks up her phone. He frowns in confusion as MJ holds her phone out and takes a selfie of herself. Peter is pretty positive that MJ isn’t one of those people who takes selfies all the time. Taking a selfie seems like a very un-MJ like thing to do.

He finally looks away from MJ, he isn’t sure how long he was staring at her, when his phone beeps. Sliding his phone open, Peter opens the text he just got and becomes even more confused at what he sees.

“Um, MJ…why’d you send me a selfie?” he looks back over at MJ.

“Pictures last longer” MJ says, not even sparing Peter a glance, as she picks her book back up.

Peter can _feel_ his face turning red as his eyes widen and his jaw drops. It takes him almost a minute to respond, “I-I wasn’t…I wasn’t staring, I was just…uh…”.

MJ raise an eyebrow but doesn’t look up from her book.

Peter shuts his mouth and turns to look back at Ned. He’s sure his facial expression is shows the horror he’s feeling.

“You are hopeless dude” Ned shakes his head, Peter groans in response, “you know you could just ask her out, right?”

“Shh!” Peter flaps his arms around in panic, “she already caught me looking at her, I can’t just ask her out”.

“…yes, you can”.

“MJ’s just started being our friend, I don’t want to ruin that” Peter sighs, “can we drop this please”.

His friend is one hundred percent ridiculous, but he isn’t going to push him since he _does_ have quite a bit going on at the moment. For now, Ned will wait and see how this plays out. He nods and change the subject, “so, which Lego set should we go for? Vonreg’s TIE Fighter? Or, First Order AT-ST?”

* * *

The rest of the week goes by like normal, or it mostly goes by like normal. Peter finds that it takes him a few days before he has the nerve to even _glance_ at MJ now.

He has his usual Wednesday at the compound, though this time he stays the night and Happy takes him to school Thursday morning, and he spends the weekend with May, which he enjoys immensely because it had felt like forever since he and May had spent some proper time together.

Spider-Man stopped several would-be bike thieves’ and helps a couple of old women across the road. He also rescued a ferret from a tree because apparently ferrets are the new cats…or at least that’s what the little girl had said after he rescued her pet.

The next three weeks continue on like that, and with the alternating weekends at Tony and May’s, which makes Peter happy. He’ll admit that there is still a slight…oddness, whenever he’s with Tony, because he still can’t get over the fact that; one, he has a dad and two, that dad is Tony Stark. However, when they are together it doesn’t feel like much has changed. He feels like something _should_ have changed…but no. It feels mostly like it did before they found out they were father and son, which makes Peter realise that maybe they had been acting a little like father and son for a while. Which is probably why he had taken to accidently calling Tony ‘dad’ in front of May, and why he’s been almost calling him ‘dad’ for the past few weeks too.

That’s made things a little stressful, trying to make sure he doesn’t call Tony ‘dad’ because he doesn’t want to freak the man out. Each week it seems to get harder, so this weekend he’s going to have to be alert and make sure he doesn’t slip up. He doesn’t want to ruin this. Not now, not while everything’s going so well.

“We’re here, kid” Happy says pulling Peter from his thoughts. He hadn’t even realised that Happy had pulled up to the compound. “You’re quiet today kid, you okay?”

Peter meets Happy’s eyes in the mirror and nods, “I’m good. Just got lost in my thoughts”.

Happy looks at Peter for a moment, deciding whether or not to believe the boy, before nodding, “okay, enjoy your weekend”.

“You too” Peter smiles at Happy before he stumbles his way out of the car and up the steps to the compound, his school bag slung over his shoulder.

“Good afternoon Peter” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s chipper voice greets Peter as he enters the compound and heads towards the elevator.

“Hey F.R.I.D.A.Y” Peter replies in an equally cheery voice, “where’s d-Tony?”

“Boss is in one of the conference rooms. Shall I take you there?”

“I don’t want to disturb his meeting” Peter says as he steps into the elevator.

“Boss is not currently in a meeting. I’ll take you to him”, and before Peter could tell her it was okay to drop him off in Tony and Peppers floor, F.R.I.D.A.Y takes him up to the conference floor.

“I can just go to Tony’s floor and start my homework” Peter says, not stepping off the elevator.

“Boss is in conference room two” is all F.R.I.D.A.Y says, continuing to hold the doors open for him.

Peter sighs. Clearly, she isn’t going to take him anywhere else. “Thanks F.R.I”. He steps out of the elevator and walks over to the conference room 2. He has no idea why Tony would be in a conference room if he wasn’t in a meeting. Tony didn’t like being in the conference room when there _was_ a meeting.

* * *

Tony is almost hundred percent certain that talking to an actual brick wall would have better results than talking to Lang and Barton. Neither man, Barton in particular, are getting it through their thick heads that he’s trying to help them.

Last week, the accords committee had finally agreed to letting Lang and Barton come home if they agreed to house arrest. Now, a week later, they are here to get their ankle monitors put on…and making Tony regret doing this for them.

Since Tony had been the one to think of the idea and push the idea, he had to be the one responsible for Lang and Barton during their house arrest. That had been one of the conditions of agreeing to let the two men come back home. Another condition was that he had to, personally, make the ankle monitors so that neither man could find a way out of them, and he has to have weekly check in’s with the men too.

Of course, this wasn’t going over to well with them. Well…it was mostly Barton that was being difficult. Barton doesn’t trust him, which is fine because he doesn’t trust Barton either. Lang was mostly staying quiet and Tony was pretty sure the man just wanted to get the monitor on quickly so he could go see his kid, however because Barton is kicking up a fuss, it is taking longer than it should have.

Apparently, even though he doesn’t trust that the house arrest deal is a legitimate offer, he still came out of hiding for it…

This is the kind of idiocy that he’s having to deal with.

“Do you really think I believe that’s it’s just that simple?” Clint glares at Tony, arms crossed over his chest, “we can just wear an ankle monitor and that’s it? We can go home with no problems?”

Brick wall.

“If you don’t trust me or the committee then why did you come here!” Tony just wants this to hurry up and be over. “Look, I get it. You don’t trust me and that’s fine, I don’t care. I’m just trying to get you both home to your kids”.

“And how are we supposed to believe that you aren’t actually doing this to screw us over?”

“If I was going to screw anyone over, which I’m not by the way, it would be Rogers. Not you. You are low down on my list of people who I’m pissed at, and Lang…I don’t even know you. I have no feelings towards you, no offence”.

Lang shrugs, his face showing that he wasn't offended, “I just want to see Cassie. I don’t care how that happens”.

“Even if you have to make a deal with the devil?” Clint mutters and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Look, you either wear the ankle monitors and go home, or you don’t and you become fugitives again” Tony huffs, “I’m just trying to give you the chance to be with your kids”.

“And why would you care about that?”

And, as if on cue like it was rehearsed, the door glides open and Peter steps in. Tony hadn’t forgotten that the boy would be coming, he was looking forward to spending time with his son, he just didn’t realise that he’d been arguing with Barton for as long as he had. Both Lang and Barton _should_ have been on their way home by now.

“Hey Tony, sorry if I’m interrupting anything. F.R.I.D.A.Y brought me up here, but I can go to your floor if you want” Peter says before he actually takes a look at who’s in the room.

Tony can see the exact moment when Peter realises who the two men are because his eyes widen almost comically. He can also see Barton’s face twist in confusion.

“…Hawkeye and Antman…” Peter says under his breath. Peter clears his throat a little and speaks a little louder, “you’re Hawkeye and Antman”.

Scott’s face changes from being slightly confused to being excited, “you know who I am!”

Clint squints at Peter, looking the boy up and down, “who are you?”

“Uh…” Peter nervously looks over at Tony.

Tony sighs and motions for Peter to come and stand next to him. He throws his arm around Peter’s shoulders, a move to comfort both of them, and also give himself a boost of confidence. “This is Peter”.

Peter gives a shy wave and Clint raises an eyebrow, “and Peter is?”

“Peter is the main reason why I care about you getting to see your kids…” Tony takes in a breath to relax himself. While he doesn’t trust Barton…he does trust that the man wouldn’t tell anyone about Peter being his son. Barton knows what it’s like to keep your kids a secret to keep them safe. “I wouldn’t want to be kept away from my kid either”.

If Tony wasn’t so tense, he’d laugh at Lang and Barton’s faces.

“You’re…you have…he’s…” Clint blinks, completely at a loss for words.

“I didn’t know you had a kid” Scott says.

“Neither did I until last month” Tony sighs, his hand tightening around Peter’s shoulder, “this information is being kept quiet because I don’t want the press finding out about Peter until he’s older. So, if you could keep your mouths shut about it, I’d appreciate it. If not for me, then for Peter”.

Both Scott and Clint nod quietly, still trying to comprehend what they just found out.

“Well, I guess with your past, having a few kids running around shouldn’t be surprising…uh” Scott’s eyes widen at what he just says, “I didn’t…that came out wrong! I just… I’m going to shut up”.

“That’s probably best” Tony turns and looks at Clint, “I’ve only known about Peter being my son for a month, but he’s been in my life for longer and I grew attached to him. It was just some strange but amazing luck that my dorky intern turned out to be my kid”. Tony looks down at Peter and smiles at him. Peter grins back and he looks back towards Clint, “If I was in your position…it would kill me not being able to see or even talk to my kid. Trust me, or don’t. That’s up to you, but I really am trying to help you see your kids”.

Clint stares at Tony and Peter and takes in a sight he never thought he’d see, “…okay…I trust you”.


	2. Sokovia Accords and Spaghetti

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...anyone else extremely upset about the whole Spider-Man leaving the MCU? Because I am! I'm just going to pretend that he's still in it, but he's just decided to go live with Tony, who did not die in Endgame, but retired to be with Pepper and Morgan instead.
> 
> Anyway...
> 
> Sorry this chapter took so long. I ran into a few issues like work, illness and writers block. However, I am here now with a new chapter for you all to hopefully enjoy.

The three men and the teenaged boy awkwardly stand and stare at one another in the conference room. Nobody really knowing what to say or do after Clint had said that he trusts Tony, something which Tony did not expect to hear at all.

“So…” Scott stands up from his seat at the table, “I guess now that’s out of the way, maybe we should introduce ourselves properly. Hi Peter, I’m Scott Lang” he grins and holds out his hand for Peter to shake, “I think it’s awesome that you know who I am”.

“I’m Peter…which you already know…because I was already introduced…”, Peter steps away from Tony to shake Scott’s hand, “how do you shrink? I mean, I know that it’s your suit that enables you to shrink and grow, but what chemical formulas did you create to do it? Because it’s really cool and it has to be advanced, right?”.

“Yeah, it’s pretty cool” Scott grins, it’s awesome that someone finally knows who he is. “I didn’t create it. Hank Pym did, it’s his ‘Pym particles’ that shrink the suit and whoever’s in it. Can’t really say any more than that because he’s very protective of his stuff”.

“Well, Mr Pym is a genius then” Peter says. Tony loudly clears his throat and Peter rolls his eyes, “you know there can be more than one genius in the world, right?”

“How dare such traitorous words come out of your mouth” Tony grins and ruffles Peters hair.

Peter groans and twist away from Tony’s hand, “Tony, not in front of Hawkeye and Antman”. He attempts to flatten the curls that Tony has messed up.

Clint watches the exchange between Tony and his son. He never thought he’d see this from Tony, even before what happened in Germany. He never pictured Tony Stark being a father.

Yes, like Scott said, it was a safe bet that due to his playboy years, Tony would have a child or two running around in the world…but having a child doesn’t make you a father. He thought that if Tony found out he had a kid then he would have just thrown money at the problem until it disappeared.

Now he can see that he was absolutely wrong.

As he watches Tony, he can see the man looking at Peter with his eyes filled with love and happiness. To Clint…it’s almost like he’s seeing another person then the man he knew a year ago. He can’t recall ever seeing Tony look as happy and relaxed as he is now while looking at his kid.

It’s seriously never a look he ever thought would be on his face and yet…it looks like it was meant to be there. Like it should be there, because the man looks a lot less stressed out than what Clint is used to seeing. He looks less worn out and more healthier, like he’s actually eating and sleeping more than he used to…and Clint is pretty sure that it’s thanks to the kid.

He was definitely getting very intrigued by this situation.

Clint steps forward and uncrosses his arms, “Clint Barton. It’s nice to meet you Peter”. He holds out his hand for Peter to shake.

“You too, Mr Hawkeye” Peter accepts his hand, “what you can do with just a bow is…amazing. You’re like Robin Hood”.

Tony snorts and ruffles Peter hair again.

“Stoooop” Peter moans, attempting to flatten his hair once more, “you can’t do that in front of Hawkeye and Antman. It’s embarrassing”.

“One, those two aren’t anything special-“ Tony ignores Scott’s offended ‘Hey!’ and continues, letting a smirk form on his face, “-and two, it’s my job as a dad to embarrass you. Right, Barton?”

“Oh yeah. Embarrassing your kids is one of the unwritten rules of being a dad” Clint nods, it’s also one of the perks. Watching their little faces burn red in embarrassment and their voices squeak in horror. 

“See? Just doing my job”.

“I’ll set Dum-e and his fire extinguisher on you” Peter crosses his arms over his chest, “he likes me more than you. If I ask him to do it, he’ll do it”.

Unfortunately, his kid was right. It seems like all of the bots that _he_ created, have decided to listen to Peter more than him over the last few weeks. They seem to like having a little human brother. “He comes near me and he’s going to a community college…in pieces”.

“You’d do that to your first born?” Peter stares at Tony in mock horror.

Tony just rolls his eyes.

“Fine…I’ll set Pepper on you. She likes me more than you too. I’ll tell her you’re picking on me” a victorious grin spreads on Peters face and Clint is pretty sure that the kid’s won this round because Pepper is scary, and he doesn’t say that lightly.

There are only three people in the world that scare him; Natasha, Pepper and Laura.

Tony glares at Peter…again, he is right. The little shit has his fiancée wrapped around his little finger and she will 1oo percent believe anything he tells her.

“You’re a brat”.

“50 percent of my bratness comes from you”.

“He really is your kid, Stark. He’s like a mini, more polite, you” Clint interrupts the pair, his mouth twitching slightly as he tries not to look amused by them. His comment makes Peter grin, his eyes lighting up, which lets Clint know that the boy finds being like Tony a compliment.

“I’m polite” Tony defends.

Both Peter and Clint snort and look at the man, “no you’re not”.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be on my side” Tony looks at Peter with mock upset, then turns to Clint and Scott, “isn’t that why you have kids? Because their supposed to be loyal to you?”.

“Their supposed to…but they’ll sell you out for chocolate cake in a heartbeat” Clint speaks from experience.

Peter hums, “I would love some chocolate cake right now”.

Clint tilts his head in a way as though to say ‘see?’, and Tony just rolls his eyes, “if you’re hungry right now, which you are because when aren’t you, you can go and have some _healthy_ snacks. Your aunt is going to kill me if every time you are here you just eat junk food”.

“She doesn’t have to know”.

“She’ll know. Women are scary like that; they just know when you’ve done something you shouldn’t”.

“It’s like they’re psychic or something” Scott nods, his face flashing briefly with pain as though he was thinking back to times when he got caught.

Peter lets out a huff, “fine, I’ll have an apple or something”.

“And don’t think _I_ won’t know if you grab something unhealthy. F.R.I.D.A.Y may like you more, but your health comes first so she’ll tell on you” Tony reminds his son.

Peter rolls his eyes but nods, “I’m gonna go do my homework”.

“Okay, I should be up soon Underoos” Tony says because hopefully now Barton will stop messing around and let him put the damn ankle bracelet on him.

“It was nice to meet you Mr Hawkeye, Mr Antman” Peter grins at the men, raising his hand up slightly in a kinda but not really wave, before leaving the conference room. The room falling quiet for a minute.

“He seems like a good kid” Clint breaks the silence.

“The best”, Tony smiles, still staring at the door Peter just left through, “when you said he was like a mini version of me…you were wrong. He’s much better than me”.

“You said that you’re keeping him quiet from the press? That’s a good call”.

“Yeah, I want him to have his privacy for as long as we can keep it. That’s why only a few people know about him and they’ve all signed NDA’s” Tony explains, “I know that eventually it will come out, everything always does in the end, but we’re hoping for him to at least finish high school before the press descend down on him like the hungry hyenas they are”.

“How old is he?” Scott asks, sliding back into his seat that he had vacated to introduce himself to Peter.

“15, and just as much of a genius as me. Top in almost all of his classes and hasn’t had a grade lower than a B. He’s on his school’s decathlon team too.” Tony brags. He can’t help it. He just loves telling people about Peter and how amazing his son is. However, because only a few people know about him, he doesn’t have many people he can brag to. So, admittedly, it feels nice to be able to show off how great his son is to some more people…even if they aren’t his first choice in people he’d like to talk to. “Frankly, with some guidance, I’m pretty sure he could become even smarter than me”.

Wow…Clint stares at Tony. The man just went into dad mode…is still in dad mode because his rambling on about projects that Peter’s working on.

It really is like Tony is practically a whole new person. Instead of boasting about himself, he’s boasting about his son. It was a sight to behold really. Tony Stark is a total parent.

“You said he was your intern before you found out about him being your son. 15’s a bit young for an intern isn’t it? I though SI only had college interns?” Clint questions.

“I went to a science fair, Peter had a project there and I was impressed. I invited him to visit my lab to see what the kid could really do and was left even more impressed, so I made an exception and made him my personal intern”, this had been the cover story that they had come up with once they made the internship a real deal.

“You also mention something about his aunt? What about his mother?” Scott pauses before he begins to ramble “-not that that’s any of my business. I was just wondering- I mean…It’s personal, so I’m shutting up”.

Tony’s sighs, “his mum and step-dad died when he was about five, in a plane crash. He’s being living with his aunt and uncle since then, although his uncle was killed in a mugging last year, so it’s just been him and his aunt until now”.

“Poor kid…he’s had it pretty rough”, Scott frowns, losing so many people who you’re close to at such a young age must be horrible.

“He’s a strong kid”, Tony says as the room fall into a slightly awkward silence. He shakes his head and gets back to business. The sooner he finishes this, the sooner he can start spending time with Peter. “Anyway, Peter isn’t what you’re here to talk about”.

“Right, so, I get a house arrest bracelet and then I can see Cassie?” Scott’s eyes light up with hope. He’s already missed so much of Cassie’s life; he doesn’t want to miss anymore.

“Well, we need to go over a few things, but that’s pretty much the idea”, Tony nods, sliding into a seat across from Scott.

“A few things?” Clint raises an eyebrow as he sit’s next to Scott.

“Just the usual rules and conditions that come with house arrest. Firstly, you can’t tamper or brake or remove the bracelets. I made them so you wouldn’t be able to anyway, but I’m just stating it so we’re clear”, Tony waits for the men to nods before continuing. “Secondly, if you go further than 100 yards from your homes, I will be alerted and if there is no good reason for you to be away from your homes then you will be arrested. So…try not to do that, it’ll look bad on me if you guys get yourselves arrested and all of this will have been for nothing. Thirdly, we will have to have weekly check in’s-“.

“What do you mean by that?” Scott asks.

“The UN wants me to monitor you both closely, so once a week I’ll be either calling or visiting to make sure that you are where you’re supposed to be and that you haven’t messed with your ankle monitors…I figured that you may eventually get a bit of cabin fever being stuck in your homes, so I was able to get the accord committee to agree into letting you come here once a month for one of your weekly check in’s”, Tony fidgets nervously in his seat. At the time that he had suggested that to the committee, he hadn’t been thinking how awkward it would be to have the two men at the compound. He was just trying to think of something that they would agree to that would allow Barton and Lang out of their houses every now and then to stop them getting restless. He was worried that if they got restless then they may do something stupid like try and tamper with their monitors and leave. If they leave, then it looks bad on him for vouching for them and then the UN would probably not listen to anymore ideas that he has…and Ross would just love that. “I know it’s not exactly a nice little vacation from your homes but at least it’ll be a change in scenery for a day”.

“That’s…that’s really generous of you. To get that for us”, Clint was currently feeling like a dick after all that crap he was giving Tony earlier. The man had clearly gone to a lot of trouble to get this for him and Scott. He wasn’t quite the selfish man that he thought he was…or let people think he was. “Thank you”.

“Yeah, well...whatever” Tony shifts in his chair awkwardly.

“No seriously, thank you” Scott nods, a grin on his face. “If it wasn’t for you doing this for us…I have no idea when I’d ever see Cassie again”.

“Just stick to the rules and don’t get yourselves arrest. That’s how you can show your thanks”. Tony pulls out two copies of the current accords. “There is just one last thing we need to talk about before I fit you with your ankle monitors and you’ll be taken back to your homes…The Sokovia Accords. You have to sign them”.

Scott nods, “okay”.

Tony raises his eyebrows, stunned at the man’s quick acceptance of having to sign the accords considering he basically went on the run for helping Rogers and not signing them in the first place. “Okay? Just like that?”

“Well, it mean’s I get to see Cassie, so yeah” Scott pauses for a second, “what are the accords about anyway?”

Wait, what? Tony stares at Scott in shock. “…Wait…you don’t know what the accords are? You didn’t read them?”

“Uh…no”.

“Then why did you help Rogers?”

“He said that there were some crazy assassin people that needed to be stopped but we weren’t being allow to, so we had to go against the law” Scott shrugs and Tony forces himself to _not_ face-plant the table. Okay, yes…there had been assassins. Very dangerous, Winter Soldier like, assassins. However, that wasn’t the only thing going on. Rogers apparently forgot to mention the whole accords thing and how that was why they could just suit up and go after the assassins like he wanted to.

Tony turns and looks at Clint, “is that all Rogers told you…or did you know about the accords?”

“Steve said that the UN was trying to push the accords on us, and that they were rules set to control us. That they were the reason why we had to go against the law to go after the assassins” Clint says.

“But you never actually got a copy of the accords to read, or got told why the UN decided to create the Sokovia Accords?”

“No” Clint begrudgingly admits. Now he realises that it was a stupid move on his part not getting all the information at the start. At the time he just wanted to help Cap out, and when he heard that they’d be going against Tony…he didn’t think much of it because he and Cap were always disagreeing over everything.

He should have read the accords first because he’s getting the feeling that there’s more to it than what Cap had said.

“I can’t deny that the UN does want to have some control over us, but we need it. We need to have some kind of supervision because we can’t just do what we want”, Tony shakes his head. “Ross, the guy who used to try and hunt Bruce down when he first turned into the Hulk, he’s involved in the making of the accords, and he…yeah, he is a pain in the ass and is making things as difficult as he can with the accords. He really needs to go. I also can’t deny that some of the things in the accords also need to go” Tony sighs. He slides over two copies of the accords to Clint and Scott, “these are just the first drafts of the Sokovia accords, the ones that Rogers disagreed with”, the two man flip open their copies and read threw them.

“If you also aren’t completely behind this-“ Clint waves his hand over his copy of the accords, “-then why’d you sign?”

“Because this is only the first draft. Signing meant that we could be involved in working on the finalised copy of the accords. That we’d get a say in what should and should _not_ be in them. If we didn’t sign then the UN, with Ross whispering in their ears, will have signed off on these being the final copy of the accords and then we’d have no choice but to sign and follow those rules…or be arrested”, Tony explains. “I’m currently working with the UN on finalising the accords. It’s taking time, a lot of time, because it’s a lot of back and forth. Some countries are happy with the accords as they are now, but I have more than half the countries agreeing with some of my changes”.

“Have you managed to get any changes made so far?” Scott asks.

“One of the first points, about hero’s with secret identities having to reveal their legal names and identities to the UN. I was able to talk them into changing it to letting hero’s keep their secret identities as long as someone else who has signed the accords vouches for them”, that had been one of the first points that Tony had changed. It may or may not have been because of a certain web-slinging hero. It may or may not have also really pissed off Ross. “I’ve managed to tweak a few other points, but like I said it’s a long process”.

Clint nods, listening to Tony as he talks while he flicks threw the accords.

“Like I said, I do stand by the fact that we need some kind of supervision because while we’re saving the world…we do cause destruction. Yeah, it can’t be helped sometimes, but…too many people get hurt and we still have to be responsible for it” Tony pauses, shifting his weight from one side to the other in the chair in an attempt to release the anxiety that is starting to creep in. “That’s why the accords were made in the first place”.

How did Clint not see this years ago?

Tony was clearly a guilt-ridden man. From all the years that his weapons had been sold to the black market, what happened at the Stark Expo and of course Ultron, his guilt has just been building and building. The accords are a way for Tony to try and ease some of his guilt.

Clint always used to think that Tony was just a self-centred, egomaniac who had no thoughts or feelings for anyone but himself.

But he was wrong. So wrong.

That was just the face that the man put on in front of everyone. He kept his real self locked away. So locked-away that he, a trained spy, didn’t even see it.

He wonders if Natasha ever knew the act that Tony was putting on... If she saw the man Tony is behind the mask. A man who isn’t selfish and actually gives and gives to keep the people around him safe and happy. He’d spend hours in his workshop upgrading their equipment and weapons, even if he had only just upgraded them a few weeks earlier.

Clint is now thinking that maybe it was never that Tony didn’t care enough, but that he just cares _too _much.

That’s why Tony went after Steve at the airport in Germany and why he was trying so hard to get him to sign the damn accords. He was trying to keep them all together. Their little family that they made.

Everything Tony has done, has been for two things; to keep the world safe and to keep their family together.

But instead it just got ripped apart.

And that’s why he wears his mask. His mask that makes everyone think that he’s a narcissist who doesn’t give a damn…because he keeps having the carpet pulled from under him, so it’s easier to try and pretend like he doesn’t care…but he does, and it hurts.

God…it all makes sense now. How did he not see this before? He’s supposed to be a trained spy.

His little bots that he has in his lab, JARVIS, Ultron and F.R.I.D.A.Y.

Tony had been building himself a family for years. Building himself things that wouldn’t leave him. Which makes sense because the man has abandonment issues. He’d never admit it out loud…but he was terrified that eventually everyone would leave him…and Clint can say that Tony wasn’t wrong to worry about people leaving him, considering half of the team did turn their backs on him and the man that was supposed to have been his father’s friend had tried to have him killed.

He had a lot of issues actually and you didn’t have to be a spy to see that. However, none of them had ever really stopped to consider Tony and his problems…his anxiety, depression, PTSD… They just left him alone and let him deal with it himself. He had given them a place to stay, training equipment, new weapons and armour…he never asked for anything in return. All he had wanted was for them to be around…

Shit, how did he not see this a few years ago?

…He’s starting to feel really shitty. Especially since Tony is doing all of this for him and Scott even after what happened in Germany…and what he had said to him on the Raft.

“So, this isn’t the finial copy of the accords?” Scott’s question brings Clint back out of his thoughts.

“No. Like I said, I’m still working with the UN on the regulations within the accords. Making them more reasonable and such. However, they do want you to sign this first draft of the accords to show good faith on your parts” Tony explains.

“Good faith?”

“Basically, agreeing that you’ll behave while you’re on house arrest”.

“I can do that” Scott says as he grabs a pen and signs his copy.

“…yeah. I’m in” Clint nods, taking the pen from Scott, he signs his copy and slides it back over to Tony.

“See, that wasn’t to hard mow was it” Tony gives them a fake smile and stands up, clapping his hands together. “Right. I’ll just slip on your monitors and you guys can leave. The escorts that brought you guys here will be taking you back to your homes”. Tony walks around to Scott and Clint, pulling their ankle monitors from his jacket pocket, “legs up because I don’t kneel to anyone but Pepper”.

Clint rolls his eyes but lefts up his left leg, allowing Tony to securely attach the bracelet to his ankle. Then he does the same to Scott before whipping out his phone and activating both ankle bracelets.

“Okay, we’re all done here now” Tony shoves his phone back into his pocket, “unless you have any questions”.

“Why did the UN let us have this deal?” Clint asks, because that is something that has been bothering him since the deal got offered to him.

“Well, for one, I pleaded your case. Made them see some reason because you have kids…played on their heartstrings a little. Second, neither one of you were involved in Lagos, which had been a big part in the UN creating the accords. Lastly, without your suit”, Tony looks at Scott and then at Clint, “and your weapons, you two are basically normal people. Lang more so then you Barton, but still. The UN felt more comfortable having you two back here because you aren’t enhanced and you’re not likely to cause much trouble because you won’t want to risk not seeing your kids”.

Clint just nods in response, happy with the answer. He can see the logic in it, it makes sense.

“Great, so if that’s all, F.R.I.D.A.Y will take you out to where your escorts are waiting to take you home”, Tony picks up the accord documents as he heads for the door, ready to go spend time with his son.

“You know, since we’re all dad’s here and we’re all superheroes…we could become like…the Dad-Vengers” Scott says with a proud grin on his face.

“Please get out” Tony groans as he practically runs from the room.

* * *

Peter finishes up the last of his homework as F.R.I.D.A.Y informs him that dinner is ready. He packs his books away in his bag, happy that he now has the rest of the weekend free to spend with his dad.

He makes his way to the table and sit’s down in the seat that has the plate in front of it which has a Peter-sized portion of food on it. Which is just another word for overloaded.

“Finish all your homework?” Tony asks as he takes his seat next to Peter, with Pepper sitting across from him pouring herself a glass of wine.

“Yep, piece of cake…or pie” Peter grins and Tony rolls his eyes.

“How did it go with Clint and Scott today, Tony?” Pepper asks, twirling her fork into the spaghetti. She knows it can’t have gone to bad or else her fiancé would be hiding in his lab.

“Well, to start with it was terrible. Talking to Barton was like talking to a brick wall” Tony shakes his head at the memory of this afternoon, “but once I finally got it through to him that I’m trying to help him, things moved on a lot quicker. They should both be at home by now, enjoying dinner with their families”.

“That’s good”, Pepper smiles.

“Why were Hawkeye and Antman here? I thought they were like on the run because they worked with Captain America in Germany”, Peter asks before shovelling a fork full of spaghetti into his mouth.

“One, you can call them by their names. They aren’t going to be out saving the day anytime soon”, Tony reaches over and stops Peter from shoving another fork full of spaghetti into his already full mouth, “and two, I’m pretty sure I’ve told you not to put so much in your mouth or you’re going to choke Peter”.

It takes Peter almost a minute to chew and swallow his food before he can speak, “sorry, I’m just hungry and this is so good. You really are a great cook Pepper”.

“Thank you, but this meal wasn’t actually cooked by me…for a change” Pepper look over at Tony and Peters eyes widen.

“Wait…_you_ cooked this?”

“Okay…ow. Your disbelief that I can cook hurts”.

“The last time I saw you cook anything other than pancakes or an omelette, there was a fire. The sprinklers had to set the fire out because Dum-E had hidden all the fire extinguishers so only he can use them”.

“Okay, so you have a reason to be sceptical” Tony admits. “Aside from pancakes and omelettes, I can cook a few Italian dishes as well”.

“Really?” Peter sits up straighter in his seat as he learns something new about his father.

Tony nods, “only a few and only because I remember cooking them with my mother when I was younger. I guess they stuck with me”.

“So, this is my grandmothers recipe then? She was a good cook” Peter smiles warmly at Tony.

“Yeah…she was” Tony nervously fiddles with his fork for a moment, “I could…teach you her recipes, the one’s I remember…if you want?”

Peters smile turns into a shy grin, his cheeks becoming dusted with a slight blush at the thought of Tony wanting to cook his mother’s recipes with him. “I think both of us in the kitchen could lead to a disaster…but I’m willing to try”.

“Oh God…both of you cooking in the kitchen at the same time” Pepper moans, closing her eyes as though to block out the image.

Tony shrugs, “we’ll be fine”.

“I better still have a kitchen by the time you to are finished in there” she gives Tony a pointed glare.

“Yes ma’am” Tony grins at her, and Pepper just shakes her head and returns to her meal.

“Anyway, back to my earlier question. Hawke-Mr Barton and Mr Lang, why were they here?” Peter asks again.

“Well, both Barton and Lang have kids. I figured that it must be horrible for them to be away from their kids for so long, I know that I wouldn’t be able to do it. So, I was able to get them a deal with the UN, so that they can be with their families. They are now under house arrest”, Tony explains.

“They aren’t going to tell anyone about me being your son, are they?” Peter frowns, worry filling his eyes.

“No, don’t worry. They won’t tell anyone”.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Barely anyone knows about Barton’s wife and kids. He’s kept them a secret to keep them safe, so he’s not going to say anything about you because he understands” Tony reassures him, “which actually reminds me, don’t tell anyone that Hawkeye has a family”.

“I won’t” Peter nods, then bites his lip, “…you didn’t tell them I was Spider-Man, right?”

“No, that is still a secret”.

“Okay, good” Peter relaxes in his seat before brightening up, “I almost forgot, I got an A on my maths test and got the top scores on it”.

Tony grins and ruffles Peters hair, “that’s my boy”.

“Great job Peter” Pepper grins at him.

“I was thinking that maybe I could stay out as Spider-Man a little longer tonight…as a ‘well done for getting an A’ reward…please” Peter turns on his puppy-eyes and Tony internally groans, because those _damn_ eyes!

“You can stay out an extra half an hour, not a minute more. Understood” he fixes Peter with a stare that left not room for argument.

Peter was both hoping for more than half an hour, but also expecting Tony to say no to having extra time. So, he’ll take what extra time he can get without complaint, “understood. I’m going to go get ready for patrol”. Peter jumps out of his seat with a grin on his face.

“I’d make sure you wash your face before you leave, you look as though you’ve eaten someone with all that spaghetti sauce around your mouth” Tony smirks as Peter’s face turns as red as the sauce on his face.

He’s 15 years old and he’s got food all around his mouth in front of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts… Someone just shoot him because how embarrassing is that!

Peter groans in embarrassment as he leaves to go clean up. With his enhanced hearing, he can hear Tony sniggering at his embarrassment as he leaves the room.

“Oh, stop it” Peter doesn’t need to see Pepper to know that she’s rolling her eyes at Tony, “like you haven’t been covered in your fair share of food…and worse”.

“Touché”.

The conversation between Tony and Pepper falls silent for a moment and it isn’t until Pepper starts to speak again that Peter realises that he’s accidentally eavesdropping again.

When he first got his powers after the bite, it took him awhile to learn how to stop himself from accidentally overhearing people conversations with his enhanced hearing. For the first few weeks he had so many headaches because of all the noise, but he was able to mostly get control of his hearing. Sometimes, however, when he isn’t thinking he can still accidentally find himself listening in on people’s conversations.

“So, you’re okay with Clint and Scott being back here?” Peppers voice is softer now.

“Well it’s not like they are here at the compound”, Tony tries to joke, but Peter can hear a slight strain to his voice.

“You’ll still have to see them once a week”.

“Yeah well…I can handle them. They didn’t really do anything, and I don’t even really know Lang anyway” Peter frowns at how tired his dad suddenly sounds. “It’ll be the others that will stress me out more once I can get them pardoned”.

What? Peter frowns, confused on so many levels. His dad is trying to get the other avengers pardoned like Hawkeye and Antman…but is worried about them coming back? Why would he be worried?

“Then don’t get them pardoned. They made their bed, let them sleep in it” Pepper says simply.

“Pep-“.

“No, Tony” Peppers voice cut’s across Tony’s harshly, “Natasha betrayed you and _Steve_-“ Peter hasn’t heard so much venom in Peppers voice before, “-after what he did to you-I saw you, when Vision brought you back from Siberia. You really want him back here?”

“The world needs the avengers Pep. Please just drop it” his voice is tense, and it makes Peter tense. What did Captain America do to his dad? What happened in Siberia?

Peter is so caught up in his thoughts that he almost jumps when he hears Tony’s footsteps heading his way. He quickly and quietly rushes to his bedroom so that he isn’t caught eavesdropping.

He heads into his bathroom and washes his face as he tries to think how he can find out what happened between his dad and Captain America in Siberia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.
> 
> Okay, so Scott and Clint are now with their families, but it won't be the last we see of them. Clint has now also see Tony in a new light and understands him a lot more, so maybe their is hope for the Dad-Vengers yet! I may have gone a little out of character for Clint, but I hope it still felt like it was him.
> 
> Also, Peter now knows that something happened to Tony in Siberia and he wants to find out what. Our poor little Petey-Pie is not going to like what he finds. 
> 
> Again, I'm sorry for the long wait because you guys are amazing with all your wonder comments and all the kudos's you give me. Hopefully the next chapter will be up sooner than this one was. There will be some more Tony and Peter bonding in the next chapter, I promise :)


	3. Hair Play and Family Dinners

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little side note: I may have mentioned before that I'm from England and here we spell some words differently. So if you see a word that looks like it could be spelt wrong, it might be or it may just be the English spelling of it. Just a heads up.
> 
> Okay, so...anyone else hear the good news that Spidey is going to have another film in the MCU? I am literally so freaking happy right now! We get to keep our little Petey-Pie for a little bit longer. Yay!
> 
> For those readers who were hoping that the Lang and the Barton kids would make an appearance, don't worry your pretty little heads. That is something I had planned since I started this story, you'll just have to wait and see what I've got planned.
> 
> Also, thank you to SeleneMoon for the idea about Peter calling the bots his 'Brobots'.
> 
> Anyway, on to the next chapter :)

All day Saturday, Peter was distracted and tired.

Distracted and tired enough that he’s pretty sure his butt is now bruised because of all the times he got knock on his ass during training. Distracted and tired enough that Tony had ended training early because he wasn’t focusing. Distracted and tired enough that as they sat in the lab, on the couch and not the stools because his butt needs some comfort after the horrible training session, he can’t even focus properly as he works on his notes for the bot that Tony is helping him make. Distracted and tired enough that Tony is currently staring at him with his eyes slightly pinched and with a single eyebrow raised.

Peter’s mind hasn’t stopped thinking about what he heard his dad and Pepper talking about the night before. Something happened in Siberia between his dad and Captain America. Something bad, because he has never heard Pepper sound as angry as she did last night. He’s also never heard his dad sound so…tense and shaky. It put an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach, hearing his dad like that, and it won’t go away.

Even spending five hours out as Spider-Man hadn’t been enough to distract him. Or wear him out enough for his mind to stop thinking and for himself to fall asleep.

Peter _needs_ to find out what happened, but he has no idea how to get answers. It’s not like he can ask his dad because he’s 100 percent positive that he isn’t going to tell him anything. He’ll just deflect any questions and then probably ground him for eavesdropping. Peter is also positive that Pepper won’t tell him anything, and neither would Rhodey or Happy…if they even know what happened. Plus, Peter has only met Rhodey once, and it was before they found out about the whole father/son thing, so it’s not like he’d tell Peter anything if he does know and Happy isn’t going to tell his boss’s secrets.

…It’s all _very_ frustrating. 

Peter focuses back onto his notebook to see that he had zoned out again because his notes haven’t changed, he’s still where he was 20 minutes ago. He mentally groans before a yawn escapes from his mouth, his eyes closing involuntarily. He has to blink a couple of times keep his heavy eyelids from staying closed.

“Oh God” Tony mutters, his head tipping back on the couch for a moment before he lifts his head back up and stares at his son. “You’ve inherited my lack of sleeping, haven’t you?”

“No, I sleep fin-“ Peter is cuts off by himself as he yawns again, “-fine. I sleep fine…”.

“You do know that F.R.I.D.A.Y can monitor your sleep, right? When you sleep, when you wake up, what stage of sleep you’re in” Tony fixes Peter with a look, “so, do you really want to lie to me about getting enough sleep?”

“Stalker” Peter pouts.

“Parent”.

“Stalker Parent”, Tony rolls his eyes at his son. Why was Pepper never around to see _this_ side of Peter?

“Parent worried about child’s health”.

“Still kinda stalker-ish”.

“Peter” and he uses the parent voice, Peter hates that voice. It’s the stern voice that leaves no room for arguments.

“I do normally sleep pretty fine…I guess I just had a bad night. That’s all” he shrugs.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you have a bad night? Nightmare?” although Tony is pretty sure that if Peter had had a nightmare, then F.R.I.D.A.Y would have notified him.

Peter shrugs, “No. Sometimes you just have a bad night”. It’s not like he can tell his dad that he spent most of the night wondering about what could have happened in Siberia and how to find out.

Tony looks at Peter suspiciously, he knows that his son isn’t telling him something, but he doesn’t know if he should push and try and get him to talk. He’s Peter’s father, so he should…but he also has technically only been his father for a month, so Peter may not react well to him pushing for answers.

He figures that he’ll keep an eye on Peter for now. He doesn’t want to overstep himself when he’s only been Peter’s father for such a short amount of time. However, if the kid keeps having ‘bad nights’ then he’ll step in. He’s not having Peter fall down the same insomniac rabbit hole as him.

“Okay, I’ll accept that answer for now” Tony reaches over and tries to pull Peter’s notes from his lap, “but since you’re tired, why don’t you go take a nap”.

Peter could tell from the tone that it wasn’t really a suggestion, but he’s a teenager so of course he’s not going to listen, “nope. I’m fine”. He tightens his hold on his notes so that Tony can’t grab them.

“You’re practically falling asleep Pete-“ Tony’s interrupted by another yawn from his son, “and you haven’t stopped yawning since we got into the lab”.

“Sleep is for the weak”.

“You _are_ turning into me” Tony mumbles under his breath before sighing at Peter, “sleep is not for the weak. Sleep is important”.

“Hypocrite”.

“Peter” Tony’s warns.

Peter groans, “I’m fine!”

“You need sleep Peter. You can’t work in the lab when you’re as tired as you are because it’s dangerous-and yes I know I’m being a hypocrite” Tony says before his son can. “The lab will still be here when you wake up from your nap”.

“It’s not dangerous” Peter protests, “we’re not even using anything, just making notes”.

“That haven’t change for the past half an hour because you’re falling asleep”, he attempts to take Peter’s notes once more, but the boy almost protectively curls himself around them.

“I’m fine” Peter insists, despite another yawn forcing its way out of his mouth.

“Okay” Tony huffs, raising his hands in defeat.

Tony leans back into the couch, wondering why he had to have a stubborn kid, when he remembers a bit of useful information that May had given him.

Moving closer to Peter, he drapes his arm onto the back of the couch with his hand falling close to Peter’s unsuspecting head. He waits a few minutes, watching Peter attempting to keep himself awake as he stares blankly at his notes. Then he moves his hand slightly so that his fingers are lightly threading threw the hair at the bottom of Peter’s head. He starts off gently because he doesn’t want Peter to realise what he’s doing. After a few minutes he spreads his fingers more firmly threw Peter’s hair, running his hand over more of his head.

Peter sighs in content, his eyes slipping shut as he leans into the touch, and Tony can’t believe that this actually seems to be working. Peter starts sinking into the couch and he carefully guides his kids head to rest against his shoulder.

F.R.I.D.A.Y helpfully dims the lights in the lab, while from the corner of his eye, Tony can see U rolling his way towards them with a blanket in his claw. These bots really did seem to love the idea of having a little brother. U dumps the blanket on top of Peters legs with a happy little beep, that unfortunately makes Peter try to blink himself awake.

“May told you abou-“ Peter yawns, “about t-the hair thing…not cool”, he mutters as he tries to push himself away from Tony.

Tony just tightens his hold on Peter and continues to play with his hair, “shh, spider-baby”.

Peter grumbles, but his words are unintelligible as he relaxes into Tony’s side, his eyes once again falling shut. With one hand, Tony continues to fiddle with Peter’s hair, and with the other he maneuverers the blanket, so that it covers Peter better.

“Sleep tight Pete” Tony’s says in a hushed voice as Peter’s breathing starts to slow, “don’t let the spiders bite”.

“Peter is beginning stage 1 of sleep, Boss” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice is quiet, so as to not wake the sleeping boy. Tony grins, feeling rather proud of himself for successfully getting his son to sleep.

It isn’t until a few moments later that Tony realises that in his efforts to get Peter to sleep, he forgot that he is now his pillow. If he was graceful enough, he could probably move without waking Peter up…however, Tony can’t say he has ever been one to do things gracefully.

Relaxing back into the couch, with the knowledge that he’s stuck here until Peter wakes up, he looks down at his son. Peter’s left cheek is squashed against his shoulder and his body is limp against him. He looks peaceful now that he’s asleep. Whatever has been distracting him, completely forgotten as he rests.

He never would have pictured this for himself years ago…hell, even just one year ago. Him sitting on the couch acting as a pillow to a kid, or even just having someone, that isn’t Pepper, leaning against him. He’s never been someone who enjoys lots of touching or people in his space. Which, since he’s both Tony Stark and Ironman, makes things kind of horrible for him whenever he has to go to or host parties and events because those are full of people standing close to him and touching his arm or his shoulder or his back… He has to put on his ‘Tony Stark’ smile and act as though all the people around him don’t make his heart race a mile a minute.

It makes him anxious and a little on edge when people are physically close to him, it took awhile before he got reasonably comfortable enough with Rhodey and Pepper, and even then they know not to crowd him to much and that he can only stand a small amount of contact before it makes him feel panicky. He has gotten better over time, but it’s still hard for him.

However, even before he found out about Peter being his kid, he found that somehow the boy had managed to wiggle his way into the small group of people, who only consisted of Rhodey and Pepper, that he didn’t mind touching him…and he didn’t even realise it. Kinda like a flea. An adorable flea.

Tony knows that Peter likes being close to people and likes having physical contact with them, he leans into it like a puppy. He found that he could give the kid side hugs and ruffle his hair and it never made him feel claustrophobic to have him close. He’s still not overly keen on touching too much, but he’s a lot more comfortable with it when it comes to Peter.

It took him years to get to that sort of level with Pepper and Rhodey, and he’s still working on it with Happy, yet Peter…it only took him a few months.

Somehow Peter is just really good at working his way into people’s lives and making them just want to love him and care for him… Or even let him use them as a human pillow.

Tony frowns, coming out of his thoughts as he looks down at Peter…

And yeah…Pete’s drooling on him.

Lovely.

The things you endure for your kids.

* * *

“Dum-e, you’re on fire safety” Tony announces, rubbing his hands together.

Tony decided that he would attempt to teach Peter one of his mothers’ recipes. It was Sunday afternoon and his kid would be going to his other home after dinner.

Dinner that may or may not have been cooked by them, depending on how much a disaster it turns out to be, since Peter still seems to be distracted. Although not quite as much as yesterday, there is a decent chance that they’ll probably end up eating take out.

Peter eyes Dum-e nervously as the bot waves around the fire extinguisher in excitement because it isn’t often that he or the others are allowed anywhere other than the lab. “Is that a wise idea? You especially know how trigger happy Dum-e can be”, Peter says quietly because he doesn’t want the bot to hear him and be hurt, “I mean, I love my brobot but-“.

“I’m sorry, your what?”

“Brobot”.

Tony blinks at Peter, “yeah, you’re going to have to expand on that”.

“You said that the bot’s see me as their brother, which then makes them my brothers too. So… Brother…Robot…Brobot”, Peter says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and Dum-e lets out a happy beep. He attempts to pat Peter on the head, forgetting that he has a fire extinguisher in his claw, so the boy has to quickly dodge the bot’s arm before he gets a concussion.

“I regret asking now” Tony sighs, “anyway, Dum-e has re-stolen all the fire extinguishers, because all of my kids are apparently little brats”. Tony ignores Peters spluttering protest of being called a brat, “so it’s either Dum-e or we have the sprinklers go off if we start a fire…which means we’ll have an unhappy Pepper, because sprinklers mean water everywhere”.

And Peter agrees that Dum-e is the less scary option.

“So, what are we cooking exactly?” Peter asks. He feels both excited and nervous to be doing this.

Peter knows that he isn’t biologically related to May, yet somehow, he managed to inherit her abilities in the kitchen…or lack of. She once, and Peter still has no idea how, managed to set a saucepan on fire even though the only thing in it was water and pasta.

He doesn’t want to mess up cooking with Tony. Especially not when it’s his mother’s recipe’s too. He wants it all to go perfectly…even though it’ll be a miracle if he doesn’t set anything on fire.

He’s just glad that he was able to get a bit more sleep last night so he can focus more than what he could yesterday. It was embarrassing…what 15-year-old has naps in the afternoon? Plus, he drooled on Tony Stark! He was absolutely mortified…still is. He’s not going to let himself be _that_ tired again. He’s also going to whine at May for teaching Tony the hair thing. It was a completely unfair advantage. How the hell was he _not_ supposed to fall asleep!

Peter still hasn’t got a clue on how to find out what happened in Siberia, but he has to try and put the thought of it to the back of his mind when he’s around his dad because he can’t become distracted like he was yesterday. It makes his dad suspicious, and if his dad is watching him because he’s suspicious then he can’t try and dig for answers.

Plus, he doesn’t want to waste his weekend with his dad on something that he knows he can’t do anything about yet. He can spend more time thinking about it when he’s at home with May.

“I figured that lasagne shouldn’t be too hard for us to make together” Tony says. He had years with his mother practicing the few recipes he knows, whereas Peter has only had May to learn from…and her cooking isn’t exactly edible. Lasagne is a reasonably straight forward recipe, so it hopefully shouldn’t go _too_ wrong.

Peter looks at the ingredients spread out on the kitchen worktop and notices that there are no pre-made ingredients. “Wait…are we making it from scratch? Like _all_ of it? We’re not going to use pre-made lasagne sheets?”

Tony stares at Peter, an almost look of disgust, “of course we’re not using store bought cheats”, he shudders at the idea. “I’m half Italian, which makes you a quarter Italian by the way”, Tony points out, “there is no way that we are going to disgrace my mother’s recipes by using cheats, or disgrace being Italian by using store bought lasagne sheets”.

“You do realise that this is most likely going to end terribly…right?” Peter warns, “you might be able to do a few recipes in the kitchen, but I’m almost as much of a disaster as May is”.

“And that’s why we have Dum-e here for fire safety” Tony says as Dum-e gives a beep in confirmation. “Plus, every Italian should know how to make pasta…or at least that’s what my mum used to say when she was teaching me”.

Tony gets to work weighing out the correct measurements with Peter watching carefully next to him.

Peter’s eyebrows cross in confusion when Tony dumps the flour onto the worktop instead of a bowl. “Uh…don’t you need a bowl?”

“Nope. This is the way my mum did it, the proper Italian way”.

“This...this is the most you’ve ever talked about your parent’s…or well, your mum”.

Tony freezes for a moment, before he nods carefully, “yeah…I suppose it is”.

“What were they like?” Peter blurts out, diverting the conversation slightly. His cheeks start to turn red, “sorry…it’s probably not something you want to talk about”.

“Not going to lie, it’s not my favourite subject” Tony sucks in a breath and feels his heart beat a little harder in his chest, “but, they are your grandparents, so you can ask about them”.

“If you’re not comfortable-“.

“It’s fine Pete. If there’s something I don’t want to talk about, I won’t” Pepper would be so proud at how mature he’s being right now. “So, what did you want to know?”

Peter wasn’t completely oblivious, he’s picked up on a few things. One of those things being that he knows that Tony didn’t really get on with his father. Which means that it’s most likely better to ask more question about his grandmother than his grandfather.

“Did your mum do a lot of cooking?” There…that should be a nice and easy question. Plus, Peter was happy with anything he could find out about any of his family.

Tony’s mouth turns into a small smile as he thinks about his mother. “Yeah…she loved being in the kitchen. She didn’t do things like baking cakes or cookies, though she did make those every now and then. She would cook proper meals. That’s the kind of cooking she enjoyed most”.

“You said that you helped her sometimes. Does that mean you enjoyed cooking too?”

“I didn’t mind it, but I mostly just did it to spend time with her. She seemed to love it when I cooked with her”.

“I suppose she probably saw it as getting to spend time with you too”, Peter smiles across at Tony and Tony smiles back, “what other things did she like to do?”

“Whenever there were any charity events or parties hosted by Stark industries, mum liked to help organise them. She had a real eye for making them look elegant and grand without them looking over the top and pretentious. Especially the charity events, because she loved helping other…That’s why I created the Maria Stark foundation in her name, so she could keep helping”.

“That’s really sweet”.

Tony clears his throat, the conversation getting a little bit t_oo_ far down the emotional path, “she uh, she also like to do gardening. Although she wasn’t any good at that. She couldn’t even keep a cactus alive…and she like getting up early in the mornings-“.

Peter wrinkles his nose up, as though he could smell something bad, “_who_ in their right mind actually _likes_ getting up early in the mornings?”

A chuckle leaves Tony’s mouth, “I have no idea, but I certainly didn’t inherit that”.

“You didn’t inherit sleeping full stop” Peter points out with a smirk and Tony rolls his eyes but doesn’t comment because he isn’t exactly wrong.

“You know, you inherited her nose”.

“Really?” Peter’s hand flys up to his nose and he stars poking at it. His eyes going cross eyed in an attempt to see his nose.

His kid was just too precious.

“She would have loved you” Tony says suddenly, his voice soft as he looks at Peter. “My mum would have spoiled you rotten and would have constantly been shoving food at you, saying that your too skinny and need feeding up…” he pauses for a moment to compose himself. “She would have absolutely loved you to pieces”.

“Yeah?” Peter smiles softly, his hand dropping from his face.

“Without question” Tony grins as he thinks more about his mother and Peter. “She would have been both terrified and angry about Spider-Man, so we wouldn’t have told her about that. She would have gone to every single one of your academic decathlon competitions, and all your parent-teacher meetings just to hear them talk about how brilliant you are. She would have had you helping her in the kitchen as soon as you learnt to walk…” Tony’s speech trails off along with his grin, because his mum _would have_, but she didn’t…because she’s gone. If she hadn’t have been _murdered_ then she could have still been alive today. Alive to have met Peter.

“What about your dad?” Peter asks carefully.

“He wasn’t as…warm as my mother. Wasn’t one for telling you how he felt, unless he was disappointed…loved telling you when he was disappointed” his voice turning into a mutter on the last sentence. Tony huffs and shakes his head “He would have like how smart you are though”. Peter opens his mouth to respond but Tony quickly interrupts, “right, lets get back to making dinner”.

Peter just nods, understanding that he doesn’t want to talk about his parents anymore, “so, what do we add to the flour?”

* * *

Peter sit’s in front of the oven watching the lasagne cook. Well…the fourth lasagne cook. It was a good thing that Tony had made sure to have extra ingredients because the first three attempts…well…they agreed never to mention them again. At least Dum-e had fun when he got to use his fire extinguisher on the second one.

It took them longer than it should have and a lot of wasted food, but Peter is proud to say that he actually managed to make a meal.

As long as it doesn’t burn or…explode in the oven that is.

“I’m pretty sure that there’s some kind of saying that says ‘a watched pot never boils’, Pete” Tony says as he steps into the kitchen, freshly showered and clean after the afternoon of cooking, with Pepper by his side.

“Good thing this isn’t a pot” Peter rubs his wet curls with the towel he had brought with him from his shower.

Both of them had needed showers after the third attempt at making the lasagne. Dum-e also needed to be wiped down before he returned to the lab.

“Roo” Tony sighs.

“I just want to make sure that it’s not burning or anything”, Peter looks up at Tony from his position on the floor, “I don’t want to have come this far just to fail at the last little bit”.

“I’m sure it’s going to be fine Peter” Pepper smiles warmly at Peter before frowning when she notices the ceiling from the corner of her eye. “What is that?”

“That will be attempt number three” Tony grimaces when he looks up at what Pepper points to.

“Attempt number three?”

“It may have taken a few attempts to get the lasagne right” Tony winces.

Pepper stares at her boys and is actually lost for words, which doesn’t happen often. “…How…how did you get lasagne on the ceiling?”

Tony is quick to throw Peter under the bus by pointing at him. Peter pouts at his betrayal before turning to Pepper, “to be fair…I did warn you both that it would be a disaster”.

“How are we going to explain that to the cleaners?” Pepper sighs.

Peter stands up and grabs the sponge from the sink. He quickly climbs up the kitchen cabinets, to the ceiling and crawls across to the mess, scrubbing it clean with the sponge. He drops back down and smiles at Pepper.

“Thank you, sweetie” Pepper gently pushes the wet curls out of Peter’s face, “now, how many attempts were there exactly?”

“Just three” Tony assures her.

“What happened to the other two attempts?”

“We decided that we are never going to speak of those” Peter states.

“They couldn’t have gone that bad” Pepper says, though her tone is sceptical because when Tony and Peter work together, she’s learnt that either something amazing will be made…or chaos will ensue.

“You have no idea” Tony mutters. Peter had not been kidding when he said he was as bad as May.

“Boss, Colonel Rhodes is here and on his way up” F.R.I.D.A.Y interrupts the trio.

“Great, right on time” Tony grins.

Peter tilts his head to the side slightly, “Colonel Rhodes is right on time for what?”

“Did I forget to mention? He’s coming for dinner. May and Happy too”.

“What?” Peter eyes widen, “I thought it would just be the three of us who may potentially die of food poisoning”.

Tony rolls his eyes at the dramatic-ness of his son, which he _may_ have inherited from him, “we’re not going to die of food poisoning. Like Pep said, it’s going to be fine”.

“Tones?” Rhodey’s voice calls as he steps out of the elevator.

“Kitchen” Tony turns his attention back to Peter, “anyway, why do you think the lasagne is so big, and why we have so much salad and garlic bread? To make sure your spider-belly is fed and everyone else’s too”.

“You know you’ve probably jinxed it now, right? Saying it’s going to be fine” Peter points out and Tony just rolls his eyes, as Rhodey enters the kitchen.

“Honey-bun. Nice of you to join us” Tony grins.

“Nice to be invited, Stank”.

“You are never letting that go” Tony groans, but the smile on his face shows that he’s not bothered by it.

“Are you kidding? That was one of the best things I’ve ever heard in the thirty years I’ve known you”, Rhodey smirks before turning to Pepper. “Hey Pep”.

Pepper pulls Rhodey into a hug, “hey Rhodey, glad you could come”.

“Of course”, Rhodey grins, pulling out of the hug and seeing Peter, “hey Peter. How’s your leg?”

Peter frowns in confusion so Tony explains, “Rhodey stopped by when you had your _little_ implement”.

“Oh. I heal fast, so I was as good as new after a couple of days, Colonel Rhodes. Thanks for asking though” Peter grins.

“I’m going to stop you right there. You can call me uncle Rhodey…well you can call me anything, but I won’t answer you unless you call me by my correct title of ‘uncle Rhodey’. Okay?” Rhodey leans against kitchen cupboards and he watches Peter face turn a light shade of red. “Tony is my brother and you’re his kid. That makes you my nephew... Plus, I’m the reason why you found out about each other, so I get automatic uncle rights. It’s only fair”.

Peter’s gaze flicker’s over to Tony, who only shrugs in response. He turns his attention back to the Colonel and it makes him think just how much his family has grown over this past month. It had just been him and May. Now he has a dad and a Pepper, as well as Happy and now Colonel Rhodes.

“I guess…if it’s only fair” Peter shyly grins at Rhodey, who raises an eyebrow to prompt the boy along, “…uncle Rhodey”.

“That’s more like it”.

“Boss, Happy and Mrs Parker have arrived” F.R.I.D.A.Y says.

“I guess I will go and start setting the table seeing as everyone is here and the foods almost done” Pepper announces, grabbing the plates from the cupboard.

“I’ll help” Peter offers, picking up the cutlery and glasses, and following Pepper out of the kitchen and to the dining table.

“So”, Rhodey turns to Tony no that they are alone, “how are things going with Peter?”

“Good, I think”.

“Really? From what Pepper’s been telling me, things are going better than good”.

“Okay, yeah…everything seems to be going great, like it normally would…just somehow it seems better”.

“You seem better too” Rhodey points out and Tony rolls his eyes, “you can roll your eyes all you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that being a dad is a good look on you. I told you that you’d be good at this”.

“It’s still early days”.

This time Rhodey rolls his eyes and starts to walk out of the kitchen, with Tony following him, “just keep caring about him the way you are and you’re going to be just fine”.

They head towards the dining table, where May and Happy are chatting to Peter and Pepper. May’s arm is wrapped around Peter, giving him a side hug.

“I’m glad you were able to come May” Tony smiles at her.

“Well, I’m not going to turn down a free home cooked meal any time soon. Especially since we don’t get any of those at home” May chuckles, turning to look at Tony as he walks over.

“Hey Hap” Rhodey acknowledges the man.

“I didn’t know you were back in town” Happy looks Rhodey up and down.

“Arrived today and like May, I couldn’t turn down a home cooked meal. Or the chance to get to know my nephew some more” Rhodey ruffles Peter’s still slightly damn hair.

Happy’s eyes narrow slightly at Rhodey before he turns to Tony, “let me know when you need me to take Peter and May home, even though I’m not a chauffeur anymore”.

“Wait, you’re not staying for family dinner, Hap?” Tony frowns.

Happy pauses for a moment. He wasn’t expecting that. When Tony had asked him to bring May to the compound for dinner, he didn’t think that was an invitation for him too. He knew what a closed off person his boss was, and he knew that he was a lot closer to him then what most people were. He also knew, however, that he wasn’t on the same level of closeness as Pepper and Rhodey were. He probably never would be.

However, this invitation to _family_ dinner…it shows him just what he means to Tony. Even if he won’t be as close as Rhodey, Tony still see’s him as family…and damn if that didn’t make him feel a little emotional.

“We made lasagne” Peter grins, looking up at Happy with his wide-eyed puppy-eyes look. Happy’s pretty sure the kid doesn’t realise the power he has with those things, because he has Tony _and_ Pepper wrapped around his little finger with those eyes.

“Fine” Happy sighs as though having dinner with them sounds terrible because he has a reputation to protect. He can’t make it known that being involved in this warmed his heart…Tony would never let it go.

“Great” Tony claps his hands together, “Underoo’s you bring out the salads and garlic bread, while I’ll go get the lasagne. Everyone else grab a seat”.

“I’ll save you a seat next to me Pete” Rhodey says, sitting down in his chair. “Like I said I want to get to know my nephew and I figured I could share some stories of Tony, back when he was in MIT-“.

“Don’t you even dare, Platypus!” Tony sharply spins around and points at Rhodey.

“What? Worried I’ll tell him about the time you decided that the toaster was too slow so you-“

“It’s all slander and lies! Don’t listen to a word off it” Tony quickly cuts Rhodey off. He makes the ‘I’m watching you’ gesture before heading into the kitchen.

“Don’t worry” Rhodey lowers his voice, “I’ll tell you later”.

Peter grins, “thanks uncle Rhodey”.

One of Happy’s eyebrows raises slightly before narrowing at Rhodey. He’s been here two seconds and he’s _uncle_ Rhodey.

Whatever.

It’s not like he’s known Peter longer or anything…or drives the kid to and from the compound a couple of times a week…or listens to the kid as he rambles about his day… Oh, wait. He _has_ known Peter longer and he does drive him and listen to him.

But whatever. It’s fine…

Maybe he’ll see if Peter wants to stop for ice cream on the drive back. It’s late but he’s a kid and all kids like ice cream, right? Plus, he has that fast metabolism or whatever, so he needs to eat a lot of calories. Ice cream would be good for that.

Yeah, he’ll get the kid some ice cream.

He bet’s _uncle_ Rhodey didn’t get him anything.

* * *

Peter and Ned slide into their seat for lunch, Peter more than ready to fill his stomach, with MJ in her usual place, a couple of seats away from them.

“What did you get up to at the compound over the weekend?” Ned asks, “and remember, I live vicariously through you, so don’t leave out any details”.

“I can’t believe you’re still trying to pretend you’re an intern for Stark Industries, Penis” Flash scoffs, overhearing the conversation as he was walking past and deciding to butt in.

MJ looks over her book to stare at Flash, “why are you so obsessed with Peter and his penis? Have something you want to share?”

“Wh-what?” Flash splutters before huffing, “as if I’d be interested in a loser like Parker”.

“Well, considering the amount of time you spend trying to get his attention by calling him names and shoving him, you seem a little interested”, MJ puts her book down to give Flash all of her attention, “or are you trying to compensate for something”, she flicks her gaze towards Flash’s crotch for a second, “by trying to seem like a bigger ‘man’ by picking on Peter?”

“That’s not…I don’t have…” Flash turns red as he stutters to get a sentence. Try to gain some of his pride back he glares at Peter, “you need a girl to handle your fights?”

“What? A man can stand up for a woman, but a woman can’t stand up for a man. What’s wrong with a woman handling a fight?” MJ glares at Flash, “I tell you; nothing. Nothing is wrong for a woman to step in and defuse the fight. It’s the 21st century and it’s called equality. Look it up”.

Flash, acting smart for once, practically runs away with his tail between his legs.

“You are amazing” Ned states, looking at MJ with wide eyes.

“I know” MJ picks her book up again and continues reading.

“Thanks for that” Peter smiles at her.

“No problem” she shrugs. “So, how was your weekend with your dad at the compound?”

Peter freeze and he stares at MJ in shock, “wha- How do you…how do you know about…about that?”

“Neither of you know how to whisper very well” she turns the page in her book. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to tell anyone about Stark being your dad”.

“R-right…thanks” Peter says slowly, now hyper aware that MJ was listening to them. He can practically feel the colour leave his face in panic. Have they ever talked about Spider-Man when MJ’s been around? They couldn’t have or else she would have said something…right?

He shares a look with Ned, who also looks slightly pale. They really need to be more careful about what they talk about and where the talk about it.

“Soooo” MJ drags out the word to prompt Peter into talking.

“Uh…it was…well it was pretty good actually, well it’s always good but uh, it was a bit more…special” Peter stumbles his way to a sentence. “Yesterday, Tony taught me one of his mum’s recipes”.

“You were in the kitchen? Cooking?” Ned’s voice full of disbelief.

“Yeah…there was some disaster, but we did manage to make a pretty good lasagne in the end. It didn’t poison anyone, and it tasted nice” Peter wasn’t going to deny the fact that he was very proud of himself for successfully cooking a meal. “Oh! And, Tony said his mum was Italian, which makes dad half Italian and me part Italian”. Peter grins, “I always figured I was just American, but now I’m part Italian”.

“So cool” Ned didn’t miss the fact that over the past few weeks Peter kept changing between ‘Tony’ and ‘dad’, and he’s pretty sure that he wasn’t aware he was doing it.

“And uncle Rhodey…Colonel Rhodes is in town, he stopped by for the dinner yesterday”.

“You call War Machine ‘uncle Rhodey’ and you had dinner with him and Ironman” Ned looks like he’s going to burst. “Thank you for being my friend”.

“I presume that Miss Potts was at the dinner?” MJ asks and Peter nods, “now that is someone worth getting excited over. She has worked her way up to the top and is now the CEO of the biggest tech company in the world. Pepper Potts…she is an actual Queen”.

“Maybe you could visit the compound sometime and maybe meet Pepper” Peter suggest, “you too Ned…just as long as you don’t freak out whenever you see Tony”.

“Yes” his answer is instant and filled with excitement.

“…I’d like that” MJ smiles at Peter, whose face starts heating up.

“I’ll…uh, I’ll talk to dad on Wednesday and see what he says” Peter quickly looks away and prays that his face didn’t go to red.

“Seriously, you are awesome!” Ned grins.

“I wouldn’t be me without you”, and it’s true. He’s known Ned for half his life, and he wouldn’t know what he’d do without his best friend.

“Well, this bromance is beautiful losers, but I’m going to head to the library and start my English essay” MJ gathers up her bag, putting the book she was reading in it, and pick up her tea. She stands up and looks down at the boys. “Remember, whispering mean’s keeping your voices quiet. Wouldn’t want anyone finding out about your dad…or your extracurricular activities”.

Without another word or a look back MJ walks away leaving Ned and Peter staring after her in shock, because she didn’t just imply what they think she did. Did she?

“Oh…my…God” Ned breathes, “she knows!”

“She can’t…can she?” Peter can feel his heart beat quickly against his chest, because yeah. MJ totally knows he’s Spider-Man.

Now he has to deal with this as well as finding out about Siberia.

He’s pretty sure MJ wouldn’t tell anyone. They’re friends and she’s a nice person…as long as you’re not an asshole. So, that’s not want worries him the most.

No, what Peter is most worried about is how she found out and could anyone else have figured it out. She couldn’t have just guessed it from overhearing conversations, could she?

He wasn’t sure whether his dad was going to kill him for being so careless with his secret identity or laugh at him for getting found out by MJ.

Neither option was appealing to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter is obviously going to find out about Siberia at some point, but I didn't want it to happen to quickly. He's got to figure out how he's going to get the information he needs without Tony finding out that he's doing it.
> 
> How cute was was it that Tony got Peter to fall asleep by doing the hair thing? I thought it was cute, and the family dinner too. As far as I'm concerned, Tony see's Happy as part of his family, so of course he'd be invited. 
> 
> I figured that Tony would talk to Peter about his mother, even if it was just a little bit to start with, and I saw the cooking scene as a good chance for that to happen. His father on the other hand...I doubt Tony will ever say much about Howard.
> 
> Also, of course MJ knows Peter is Spider-Man...she's not an idiot.
> 
> Feel free to leave a kudos and bookmark my story if you are enjoying it so far. I love reading all of your reviews, they always put a smile on my face, so please leave some of those too. 
> 
> Until next time :)


	4. School Meetings and Playdates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry that this chapter took so long! It was like I blinked and last month just flew by before I even realised it.
> 
> It was a bit of a manic month for me. First, my dog spilt my tea over my laptop. Liquid and laptops don't really mix well together. I was eventually able to save my laptop (thank God!) and am now making sure I back up my work more regularly than I had been before. Now my phone, which has a lot of my notes on for this story, decided it didn't want to live anymore so...all of my notes, photos and everything are gone :(
> 
> I've made this chapter longer than I had intended, which was another reason why this took so long. I realised that I forgot to write in whether the school knew about Peter being Tony's son, so I added it in this chapter and it made it so long.
> 
> Now, a little side note: as I'm from England obviously some words have meanings that are different to other countries. In this chapter I write about 'parents evening' which I think for other places it may be called things like 'parent-teacher meetings' or something. I also literally just searched 'American high school classes' and chose some of the subjects because in England we learn things a bit differently.
> 
> Okay, you all probably just want to read the chapter so I'll let you get on with that.

Once the bell rings to signal the end of the school day, Peter races out of class to find MJ before she goes home. While he trusts her…he has to make sure she won’t tell anyone and he needs to know exactly how she found out, because this is getting ridiculous.

_How_ do people keep finding out about him being Spider-Man?

First Tony, then by extension Happy and Pepper…and uncle Rhodey, then Ned, Mr Toomes and May…now MJ.

His _secret_ identity is becoming rather un-secret, and it’s not because he’s telling anyone…they’re just finding out somehow. Which is actually worse than him telling them.

Peter catches sight of MJ’s wild curls as they disappear around a corner, so he nimbly moves through the crowd of students after her. He dodges the bags that are getting swung onto people’s backs, manoeuvres past the groups of teens walking casually down the hallway and slides around the corner that MJ disappeared around…and almost gets smacked in the face by an open locker door. Peter barely skids himself to a stop in time to avoid getting knocked out.

“Careful dork” MJ’s face peers round her locker door to give Peter a raised eyebrow.

“MJ!” Peter squeaks. Why does he keep managing to embarrass himself in front of her?

“That’s me”.

“I uh…I think we need to talk about…you know…_Spider-Man_” Peter lowers his voice as his says the last word.

MJ sighs and shakes her head at how, for such a smart person, Peter can be so stupid sometimes. She slams her locker shut and grabs Peter’s arm, dragging him into the girl’s toilets with little protest from the bewildered boy. Probably because he didn’t realise where she had been dragging him until it was too late, and they were already in the toilets.

Peter’s eyes go wide as he stutters, “this-this…this is the girl’s toilets”.

“Very observant”, MJ drops his arm, causing Peter to freeze in place, and she checks the toilet stalls to make sure that they are empty.

“We-we’re in the _girl’s_ toilets!” his voice rises in pitch slightly.

“Yes, to talk privately about your night-life” MJ turns to face Peter, her arms crossed and a deadpanned expression on her face. “I seriously have no idea how no one else in this school hasn’t figured out your secret. Especially when you do things like try and talk about it in a crowded hallway…or during lunch or class”.

Peter feels his face heat up as it turns red. He and Ned can’t be _that_ bad, can they?

“So, I’m guessing you want to know how I figured out about your web-tastic alter-ego?” MJ asks and Peter silently nods his head, still feeling very uncomfortable about being in the girl’s toilets. Although on the plus side, they do smell nicer than the boys. “Well, like I said, you and Ned can’t whisper to save your lives”.

“But it can’t have just been that. Anyone else would have just thought that we were weirdos talking about Spider-Man stuff all the time”.

“You and Ned are weirdos”.

“MJ!” Peter pouts, and she’ll never admit it…but even she can’t resist that damn face.

“Washington”, MJ sighs as she leans back against the sinks. “I noticed that you had been acting odd for a while, especially in gym, but it wasn’t until we went to the Academic Decathlon competition in Washington that I started to figure it out. I mean, you disappeared, and Spider-Man conveniently showed up. Plus…you and Spider-Man sound exactly the same”.

Peter winces, because that would definitely be suspicious.

“It didn’t help that a few days before that Ned had told everyone that you knew Spider-Man-“.

“Yeah, that wasn’t meant to happen”.

MJ snorts, “no kidding, Loser”.

“So, you knew after Washington then?”

“The idea that you could be Spider-Man formed because of Washington but I didn’t completely believe it until Homecoming”, MJ continues to explain. “Once again, you disappear, and Spider-Man appears moments later in the schools parking lot, call’s Flash by his name and then goes and takes down Liz’s dad who had been selling alien weapons”.

“How was saying Flash’s name a hint that I was Spider-Man?”

“Well, how would Spider-Man even know who Flash is?” MJ points out. Flash had spent most of Homecoming bragging about how Spider-Man knew him and towards the end of it, MJ had seriously considered murder. She was pretty sure that, with how annoying he was being, a lot of people would have given her an alibi for the police if she had killed him.

“…oh”.

“Yep” MJ nods, “overhearing all of your conversations with Ned, because you _really_ can’t talk quietly, basically just sealed the deal”.

Peter stares at MJ as she moves away from the sink and takes a couple of steps closer to him. He is suddenly _very _aware of the fact that he’s never been alone MJ before, Ned has always been around. But now, it’s just him and MJ and she’s standing only a metre away from him. Suddenly his is throat is feeling dry and his hands are feeling sweaty and his heart is pounding hard against his chest.

He really needs to stop thinking about her, and how close she is, and start getting back on track.

He swallows, “you-“, Peter winces because that came out a little high pitched, which isn’t going to look very attractive. “You-you haven’t told anyone about…about…me being…_Spider-Man_, have you?”

MJ glares at Peter, whose face goes from red to white because she can be scary when she wants to be, “no, of course I haven’t told anyone or am I going to tell anyone. It’s not my secret to tell”.

“Sorry, I knew you wouldn’t have but I just had to make sure” Peter says apologetically, and MJ drops her glare.

“It’s fine” she huffs, “although, just because I haven’t said anything doesn’t mean that eventually others won’t start working it out if you don’t start being careful. I mean, this school isn’t exactly full of idiots”.

Peter sighs, “you’re right”.

“Of course, I am”, and the smirk MJ gives him does funny things to his heart. “You are so lucky that you have me to help you out”.

“I am” Peter beams at MJ, and she will deny that that smile made her feel all warm inside.

“As much as I’d love to stay and chat with you in the girl’s toilets, I’d also like to go home” MJ quickly says to get her mind of his damn smile. “And I’m pretty sure you have some Spider-manning to do”.

“Yeah, that I do…” Peter nods. “I’ll uh…walk you out”.

“Out of the toilets or out of the school?” MJ raises an eyebrow at him, “either way, I don’t think I’m going to get lost”.

“I didn’t-that…I meant-because I didn’t…I wasn’t” Peter stumbles his way to a full sentence as his face turns red. “I just meant that…well, I have to go that way anyway and I thought we could uh…walk together…”

She loves it when he gets all flustered, it’s so adorable. “Sure”.

“Great! I mean good-cool…yeah…it’s whatever” Peter rambles out nervously, willing himself to be normal for a change. “Uh, after you”.

MJ rolls her eyes but walks past Peter and into the now empty hallway. Peter quickly gets in step with her as they walk.

“I was wondering, even though Stark being your father is a secret, will he be going to the parents evening on Thursday?” MJ asks, because she’s both genuinely curious and so that they aren’t walking in an awkward silence. “Also, are you telling the school about him being your father?”

“Uh…I don’t know” Peter frowns, “I mean, I haven’t really thought much about it after Tony said that we were keeping it quiet to stop the press finding out. I know that some people know, like his lawyers and stuff, and they all had to sigh NDA’s, but he didn’t mention talking to the school”.

“Talk to him about it, see what he says” MJ suggests, “maybe he’ll get the school to sign NDA’s so he could come”.

“Tony Stark at a parents evening? That would be something to see” Peter grins before realisation hits him, “it could also be very embarrassing”.

“I better bring my ‘People in Crisis’ sketch book then” MJ smirks.

* * *

Almost three hours of Spider-manning later, Peter walks into his and May’s apartment. It was an average day as Spider-Man, though Peter has found that Monday’s usually do tend to be a bit quieter than some other days of the week. Monday’s were usually spent helping old ladies across the street and stopping the occasional wannabe mugger or bike thief.

“May, I’m home” Peter calls out as he drops his backpack in his room.

“Kitchen, sweetie” May shouts.

Peter frowns and heads towards the kitchen, “you’re not cooking, are you?” It doesn’t smell like she is. The kitchen actually smells nice.

“No, I’m dishing out the Thai I ordered. Come and grab what you want”.

Peter relaxes and grins as he steps into the kitchen, “I really larb you”.

“Larb you too”, May rolls her eyes at her nephew, but a smile forms on her lips. “How was your day? Learn something at school? Catch a bad guy on patrol?”

“School was the same as normal”, there is no way that he’s going to tell May that MJ found out about him being Spider-Man. She’d freak if she knew that he’d been so careless with his secret that someone had been able to figure it out. “Patrol was pretty quiet, but I helped an old lady carry her shopping to her car and she bought me a doughnut as a thank you. That was nice of her”.

“Well, you know I like it when patrol is quiet” May says as she sits down on the couch with her food. “It’s safer that way”.

“I’m only helping the little people anyway, it’s not like it gets too crazy out there”, Peter points out, jumping onto the couch with his Peter-sized plate of food.

“Honey, with you, things can go from quiet to crazy in a blink of an eye. You just have a way for finding trouble”.

“I don’t find trouble” Peter attempts to deny but May gives him a pointed look. “Okay…I may _occasionally _stumble across a _little_ bit of trouble”.

May snorts, “if your definition of a little bit of trouble is taking on an alien’s weapon dealer and crashing a plane, I do _not_ want to know what you think is a lot of trouble. I like being brunette, not grey”.

“Speaking of grey, can we talk about the parents evening on Thursday?” Peter nervously twirls his fork around.

“I don’t know what grey has to do with the parents evening, but don’t worry about it. I’ve managed to swap shifts with Malcom, so, as long as there are no disasters, I’m definitely going to be there this time” May smiles at Peter, “I can’t wait to hear the teachers talk about how smart you are”.

“May”, heat rises to Peter’s cheeks. How many times was he going to blush today? He needs to get back on subject, “I know that we’re keeping the whole ‘Tony Stark is my dad’ thing a secret, but do you think he’d want to…maybe…I mean, he doesn’t have to, if he doesn’t want to…actually never mind. It’s stupid-“.

“Do you want Tony to come to the parents evening as well?”

“Do you think he’d want to?”

May sighs, putting her plate on the coffee table and moving closer to Peter, “honey, I think he’d love to. He’ll have no clue what to do there because it’ll be something he’s never done before but he’s definitely going to be acting like a proud parent when any of the teachers comment on how great you are”, May brushes some of his curls back of his forehead. “Heaven help any teachers that have an issue with you because they won’t know what’s going to hit them”.

“Would he even be able to come? You know since we’re keeping it a secret”.

“I’m sure Tony will think of something, or better yet Pepper” May plant’s a kiss on Peter’s head before moving back and grabbing her plate. “Once we’ve eaten, you go do your homework and I’ll call Pepper and Tony and see what ideas they can think of”.

Peter nod’s, “thanks”.

“Just doing my job” May smiles at Peter before pausing, “…Is that why you said, ‘speaking of grey’? Because Tony has grey hair?”

“…yeah”.

Peter grins as May bursts out laughing, “I larb you so much right now”.

* * *

Tony fiddles with the cap on his head for the fifth time since getting out of the car and May slaps his hand away from his cap for the fifth time.

“The more you fidget, the more you’ll draw attention to yourself” May huffs at the man who thinks wearing a hat is a good disguise.

Tony had been both terrified and elated that Peter wanted him to come to his parents evening. Howard never came to any of his when he was a child and he could still remember the pain of his father not showing up. He had hoped that if his father had come and saw all his work, that he had worked so hard on…that maybe he’d be proud of him for once…but he never showed up. He was always too busy working.

He wasn’t going to be like Howard. He wants to be here and see his son’s work and tell him how proud he is of him. Though, he can’t deny that he’s feeling nervous, because to him, this feels like the first proper parental thing he’s done since finding out about Peter being his son. He feels like he’s really starting to become a dad now.

May had talked to the school and managed to get the latest meetings possible with the teachers in the hopes that, with it being so late in the evening, most of the other parents will have already finished and left. Hopefully, the few parents that are still around, should be focusing on their own child, rather than the man who’s wearing a cap inside and looks strangely familiar.

Or at least that’s what Tony said, though Peter isn’t too sure because surely, just one look at him and people will probably know who it is. Hat or no hat…Tony Stark is pretty recognisable.

“You are violent” Tony mutters, rubbing his hand that May had slapped.

“You get thrown around in a tin can for a living, I think you can take a little tap to the hand” May rolls her eyes at the man.

“You’re both going to draw attention to us” Peter mumbles at the pair as he leads them towards Principal Morita’s office.

Pepper had suggested that it would be a good idea to talk to the principal about the change in Peter’s family so that the school was aware, just in case anything happens. So, May also asked to have a meeting with the principal before they went to talk to Peter’s teachers.

“Sorry honey” May runs a hand through Peter’s hair as they stop at reception. “Hi, May Parker. I have a meeting with Principal Morita”.

“I’ll just go and let him know you’re here” the receptionist, Mrs Lane, says before walking over to the principal’s office behind her.

Peter bounces on his feet slightly as they wait for Mrs Lane. He’s feeling nervous…so nervous that MJ would probably fill one of her ‘People in Crisis’ sketch books, because Tony Stark is here at his school and is going to be talking to his teachers about his work.

It’s like an excited nervous. He can’t wait to show off his work and have Tony be proud of him, but he’s a little nervous about what Tony will think of the things he does at school. Peter knows he shouldn’t be, because ever since his internship became real, Tony’s been supportive about everything he does and always encourages him. He just can’t help having that small worry in the back of his mind that Tony will think his work isn’t good enough.

“Okay, you can go straight through into his office” Mrs Lane says as she returns to her chair.

“Thank you” May smiles politely at her before the trio walk over to Principle Morita’s office.

Tony pulls his hat down a little to cover his face more when Mrs Lane looks at him as they walk past her desk. May rolls her eyes at him because how is he a genius? She’s pretty sure Pepper doesn’t know that this is Tony’s way of hiding his identity because if she did, there is no way she would have let him come to the school with it.

May enters the office first with Tony walking in after her and Peter trailing behind, his nerves starting to get a little worse because they are about to tell the principal, _his_ principal, who his father is. It may not seem like a big deal…but it is…or at least to him it feels like it because it will be one more person who will know about it. Then, when they tell his teachers, that’ll be even more people, which increases the risk of him being found out.

It’s not that he’s ashamed to be Tony Starks son, he’s just nowhere near ready to have his privacy intruded.

Tony shuts the office door after Peter enters and then happily takes off his cap. The thing was messing up his hair.

“Thank you for meeting with us, Mr Morita” May shakes Principal Morita’s hand.

“No problem” he says before his eyes move to Tony and they widen in shock and confusion at seeing Tony Stark in his office. He knows that Peter, somehow, has an internship with Stark Industries…but why would that lead to Tony Stark being in his office? Then again, the man, for some reason, was Peter’s secondary emergency contact. Maybe he felt obligated to be here.

“Hi, Tony Stark” Tony needlessly introduces himself as he shakes the shocked principal’s hand.

“Uh, Mr Stark…” Principal Morita blinks at the man “I didn’t know you’d be at this meeting as well. Please, have a seat”, he indicates to the chairs in front of his desk for May, Tony and Peter to sit in. “Is this meeting about Peter’s internship?” Principal Morita asks, taking a seat in his own chair behind his desk.

“Nope” Tony pops the ‘p’ just because he can, “this is a more personal and private matter”.

“We recently found something out about Peter’s father, and we thought it was best to inform you” May winces because she knows she’s not explaining this very well, but it’s not like she’s ever had to do this before.

“I thought Peter’s father was…no longer with us” Principal Morita says gently because the boy was sat right there, though he is still confused as to why Tony Stark would be involved with a personal matter with one of his interns. He’s also confused as to why, due to the fact that Peter’s father is dead, anything about him would be important.

“Well, that’s why we’re here. It turns out’s Richard was actual Peter’s step-father”.

“And I’m Peter’s biological father” Tony finishes, turning his head to look at Peter and grin. His son giving a nervous smile back.

“You’re Peter’s father?” Principal Morita stares at the trio.

“Yep…that’s what I said-“, Tony gets cut off by May slapping his chest and glaring at him.

May turns back to face Principal Morita, “we only discovered this last month, and like I said we thought it was best to inform you so that you would be aware”.

“I’m sure you understand that this is a bit of a…sensitive matter” Tony jumps back in. “This is all being kept quiet for Peter’s sake. If the press were to find out I have a son, he wouldn’t have a moment of privacy. I trust this will be kept secret”.

“Of course”, Principal Morita, snapping back from the shock, nods his head in understanding, “we would never give out information on any of our students. All information is kept private and confidential”.

“Good, though you will have to sign a Non-Discloser Agreement” Tony pulls out an NDA from his briefcase, “it’s nothing against you or your teachers, but everyone who knows about Peter has to sign one. I’m sure you understand”.

Principal Morita takes the NDA from Tony and quickly looks it over, his mind still a little rattled from everything he’s been told in the past couple of minutes. “It might be best for me to accompany you to see Peter’s teachers, so I can explain the situation”.

Peter just wants to disappear right then and there because now his principal was going to sit in on his meetings with his teachers? MJ would be loving this.

“That would be great” Tony grins, feeling a bit of joy as he see’s Peter wiggle in his chair, the boy clearly starting to get embarrassed by the situation.

“Will we be updating Peter’s school file and changing who his father is on it?” Principal Morita asks, “all students files are kept secure, and only myself and a few other would be able to have access to it”.

“Your files aren’t that secure. Anyone with some decent knowledge about computers could hack in” Tony says flippantly and Peter winces at the fact that he’s basically insulting his principal. “I’ll upgrade your systems and make them actually secure, free of charge. We wouldn’t want a leak on your end-“ May once again slaps his chest, “hey!”

“You’re being rude again. Stop it” May glares at Tony before giving Principal Morita an apologetic look, “I’m sorry. He sometimes doesn’t even realise he’s being like that”, Tony goes to protest but shuts his mouth when May sends another glare in his direction. “anyway, what Tony is trying to say is yes. If you could add his name on to Peter’s file, that would be great. Thank you”.

May raise an expectant eyebrow at Tony and the man sighs, “thank you”.

“No problem” Principal Morita says, both sounding and looking awkward, “I presume though, since this is being kept quiet, Peter’s name will remain as Parker”.

“Yes, that’s best for now” May nods and it makes Peter pause for a moment because he’s not actually thought about his name.

Legally his name is Peter Parker…he likes being Peter Parker. It was his mum’s name and his da…stepdad’s name. It was Ben’s and it’s still May’s. Having the last name Parker just makes it feel like he’s still connected to them. Which is stupid because he knows that he’ll always be connected to them, that they’ll always be his family…and it’s just a name…but it’s his family’s name.

Of course, that isn’t to say he’s opposed to having the last name Stark…he just doesn’t want to _not_ be a Parker.

“So…if you could sign the NDA, and then we can get this parent/teacher thing started” Tony ruffles Peter’s hair, because he’s genuinely excited now to do the whole parent thing and see all of Peters work. He can’t wait to hear all the good things the teachers have to say about his son, because it’s Peter…there is no way they could possible have anything negative to say… If they do, well…they’ll be looking for a new job.

“Right” Principal Morita nods, picking up his pen and signing the form before handing it back to Tony. Peter, knowing about his dad’s dislike of being handed things, takes the NDA for him. Principal Morita’s eyes flicker between Tony and Peter in a bit of confusion, but lets it go because the evening has been strange enough already. “Okay, shall we get started?”

They visit Peter’s Chemistry teacher first and she, of course, only had good things to say about Peter and was pleased to report that he was no longer getting distracted in class, like he had been a few months previous. Tony and Peter both knew the reasons why he used to get distracted in class and it was because he used to make his webs there. Now though, he only makes them at the lab in the compound, so he has all his focus back in the classroom…well, _most_ of his focus. He’s still a teenager and school can still be boring at times.

After that, they move on to Peter’s Physics teacher, Mr Harrington. In between complementing Tony and fan-girling over Tony, he talks about Peter’s work and that he’s pleased that Peter decided to re-join the Academic Decathlon team. Tony happily says that he can’t wait for the decathlon competitions to start because he can’t wait to watch Peter competing.

Peter feels a warmth spread over him at the idea that, not only does Tony want to come to his competitions, but that he’ll actually have someone there cheering for him. It wasn’t very often that May was able to go, so the thought that someone in the audience would be there for him…it just makes him feel important.

He’s never held it against May for not being able to show up to many competitions or parents evenings. It hurts, not having anyone be there while his classmates have their parent’s or grandparents or older siblings there for them, but it’s not May’s fault. She had to work so that he had food in his mouth, a roof over his head and clothes on his back. He could never hold it against May for working to provide for him… But it does feel so good knowing that Tony would possibly be there for him.

After they are able to get away from Mr Harrington, they talked to Peter’s Biology teacher. Then his Calculus teacher, and his Spanish teacher, and the rest of Peter’s teachers, finishing with Mr Warren, the Engineering teacher. They spent the longest talking to Mr Warren…or at least Tony did, and Mr Warren was more than enthusiastic to have a conversation with Tony Stark, a man who was basically a king at engineering. Both May and Principal Morita were pretty lost for most of the conversation, but Peter happily joined in, adding his own points into the conversation.

At the start of all the meetings with Peter’s teachers, Principal Morita would explain that Tony was Peter’s father and that it was being kept private for Peter’s privacy and safety. Tony would then shove the NDAs in the faces and tell them to sign it or else, to which May would groan and ask him to stop threatening Peter’s teachers while Peter would slide down in his chair, red with embarrassment.

Overall, all of Peter’s teachers said the same thing; that he’s a delight to teach, incredibly smart and always either at the top or near the top of his class. They also all said that they were happy that he’s no longer getting as distracted as he did at the start of the year and that he’s paying much more attention in his classes.

He had to start paying more attention in class, due to the fact that one of the rules of him being Spider-Man was that his grades couldn’t slip. Not that he could tell his teachers that.

“Peter is a wonderful student” Principal Morita says as he walk’s the three of them out of the school, “we are happy to have him at our school”.

“I know that Peter loves this school, and I can see why” Tony already knew that Midtown School of Science and Technology was one of the best public high schools. But, visiting the school and seeing with his own eyes how good it is and that Peter is happy here was an extra comfort. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out his check book and a pen. “Here”, he scribbles out 100,000 dollars and signs it, handing the check over to Principal Morita, “is this enough, or do you need more?”

“Mr Stark?”

“A donation for the school. For any upgrades or new equipment that will continue to help the kids here with their learning and such. They’re all bright and I want to keep on top of that” Tony says, wrapping an arm around Peters shoulders.

“This…this is more then enough. Thank you, Mr Stark, this is incredibly generous of you” Principal Morita says, still stunned by the check.

“Like I said, Peter’s happy here and it’s a top school. I want to keep it that way” Tony shrugs like it’s nothing, but Peter’s eyes widen in complete shock at Tony just casually handing over 100,000 dollars. Even May’s face takes on a small amount of surprise before she remembers it’s Tony and he can’t do anything without out being extra.

“That’s like…a lot of money” Peter stares at the check.

“This school is one of the bests and to keep it as one of the best schools, they need to have the best resources and equipment. For that they need money”. Tony squeezes Peter’s shoulder, “besides, you’re forgetting I’m a billionaire. 100, 000 dollars is not a lot of money for me, this is hardly even going to make dent in my bank. Heck, it won’t even make a scratch”.

May decides to jump in before Tony tries to give away more money or Peter has a panic attack when he finally realise that he’s technically a billionaire now too, “thank you for meeting with us this evening and for agreeing to keep all of _this_-“ she waves her hand in Tony and Peter’s direction, “-discreet and private”.

“Of course, Mrs Parker. It was a pleasure” Principal Morita shakes May’s hand and then Tony’s, “it was nice to meet you, Mr Stark”.

“Like wise” Tony nods.

“If there is anything else we can do for you, just let me know” Principal Morita says before heading back inside the school.

“Well, I think it’s fair to say that the evening was successful” May smiles as they walk over to Tony’s car, where Happy had been sat waiting for the past hour.

“Yeah…apart from all of my teachers getting threatened before they could even speak” Peter shoots Tony a look.

Tony rolls his eyes, “I was hardly threatening them. I was only letting them know just how I can ruin their lives if they didn’t sign the NDAs”.

“That’s called threating them”.

“No, it’s called informing them”.

May just shakes her head at the pair as she climbs into the car, with Peter and Tony following in after her.

“Also, did you _have_ to take photos of my projects?” Peter doesn’t whine…okay, maybe he whines a little.

“They were amazing, college level amazing. Why would I not take photos of them?” Tony says and Peter flushes from both embarrassment and from the praise.

“I told you he’d be acting like a proud dad the whole evening” May reminds Peter with a smile on her face.

“Of course, I was proud. Did you see his work! You’ll definitely be going to MIT” Tony states proudly.

“So, I take it the evening went well, and that Peter’s work is, un-surprisingly, some of the best in his class?” Happy says, driving away from the school.

“How could you tell?” May says sarcastically, a smirk forming on her mouth.

“Just a hunch” Happy’s mouth twitches, but he doesn’t let himself smile because he doesn’t smile for anything other than Downton Abbey. “So…is Rhodes still in town?”

“Yeah, for another couple of days” Tony nods. “Then he’ll head back to the base”.

“When will uncle Rhodey be back?” Peter asks.

“Not sure, but it probably won’t be again for another few weeks”.

There’s silence in the car for a minute before Happy speaks up again, “so…since the kids doing good in school, should we stop and get ice cream? To celebrate?”

“Can we?” Peter looks pleadingly at May.

May sighs at the power of the puppy-dog eyes, “sure, but one scoop only”.

“Well, you heard the lady, Hap” Tony smirks, knowing the reason why Happy suggested ice cream. It happened to be the same reason why Happy was late dropping Peter off at the compound yesterday, because he stopped to get some ice cream for the boy then too.

It was amusing to watch the man be jealous of Rhodey and try and use ice cream to buy Peter’s affection. Not that he needed to buy Peter’s affection of course, because his son is like an actual puppy and just loves everything. He knew that Rhodey found Happy’s jealousy of him amusing, but Tony wonders long it will take before Rhodey starts getting jealous of how much time Happy spends with Peter, and for it all to start becoming a competition between the two of them.

“Thanks Happy” Peter grins, and Happy is definitely, absolutely, not even a little bit smug on the inside.

Okay…maybe he’s feeling a _little_ bit smug.

* * *

Tony paces anxiously around the front steps of the compound as he waits for Lang and Barton to arrive. It has been a month now since they were given house arrest and went home, which means it was time for their monthly visit to the compound.

Their last three check in’s, since getting their ankle monitors, Tony has done over the phone. He’s been to nervous to visit them, though he knows he’s going to have to soon, because it just felt too intrusive and awkward to be in their homes with them and their families so soon. Plus, he’s also a little weary of being alone with them. He much prefers Lang and Barton over some of the other rouges…but that doesn’t mean he’s comfortable with them.

Hopefully the visit shouldn’t last too long. Maybe a couple of hours. He’ll check over their ankle bracelets, even though he knows they’re fine, and maybe show them around the compound since neither of them have actually seen it, other than when they were here to get their monitors. Lang had never been part of the team, although if Tony remembers, he’s pretty sure Lang did break in at one point according to Wilson. Whereas, Clint retired after the…Ultron fiasco, so he wasn’t around when the compound got built.

Tony stills as a government car pulls up to the compound, meaning either Lang or Barton are now here.

…Why did he do this? This is going to be so awkward. What are they even supposed to talk about?

Tony’s nerves turn into confusion when a little girl jumps out of the car. She’s staring at the compound with a look of awe on her face, and she’s bouncing slightly on her feet. Tony will admit, she’s really cute…but who is she and why is she here?

Scott slides out of the car behind the girl and suddenly the who and why make sense…well, the who makes sense. Tony’s still unsure on the why.

“Lang” Tony says, his voice taking a slightly questioning tone.

“Hey, Mr Stark…Tony…Sir…uh” Scott fumbles, unsure on what to call him. “This is my daughter, Cassie” Scott grins, his hand resting on the little girl’s head, “Cassie, this is Mr Stark”.

“Dad said that you helped to get him home”.

Tony just nods, unsure of how to respond.

“Thank you for helping him, Mr Stark” Cassie smiles at him and Tony can already tell that Peter is going to have some competition for cutest puppy eyes, because she’s got some good ones.

“It was my pleasure” Tony says, and he’s not exactly lying because he did want to get Lang and Barton home for their kids. “You can call me Tony. Mr Stark was my dad”.

“Okay” Cassie nods, her grin still firmly on her face.

“Is Clint here yet?” Scott asks, leading Cassie up the steps of the compound.

“Barton lives on a farm, so he’s further away, but he should be here soon” Tony states.

“What about Peter? Is he around?”

“His school finished a while ago, so he’s on his way home. He should be here in about ten to twenty minutes, depends on the traffic…and if Happy stopped to buy ice cream again” Tony mumbles the last part to himself.

“Great” Scott grins like an overly excited puppy.

Tony narrows his eyes slightly, “why do you want Peter here?”

“We just thought it would be nice, since we all have kids, if they got to know each other” Scott shrugs.

“We?” Tony frowns.

“Me and Clint. We talked about it and thought it would be a good idea to bring are kids here, so they could meet each other and stuff”.

“Hold on” Tony raises a hand to stop Scott from talking any further as realisation sets in. “Have you and Barton decided to set up a _playdate_ between our kids?”

“Well…I wouldn’t call it a playdate”, Scott scratches the back of his head.

“You know Pete’s not ten, right? I mean, I know he’s kinda short and he’s got those chubby cheeks, but he’s not a young child”, Tony points out.

“Clint’s son is about the same age as Peter, and his daughter is about the same age as Cassie” Scott says, “like I said before, we figured it might be nice for them to hang out with each other. You know, since their dads are all superhero’s…or were, in some cases”.

Tony stares at Scott, before sighing and massaging his forehead, “I feel like this could only end in disaster”.

“No, this’ll be great” Scott beams, ruffling Cassie’s hair, who also has a big grin on her face.

Before anymore can be said, another government car pulls up to the compound, and this time Tony is prepared for the children that start jumping out of the car.

The last time Tony saw them, was also the first time. He hasn’t seen them since the Ultron fiasco, expect in a couple of photos’ that Romanoff had shown all of them after the baby had been born. The baby, who is now a toddler. The little girl, Lila, looks only a little older than what Tony remembers, while the teen, Cooper, definitely looks taller and older.

Both Clint and Laura get out of the car after their kids, and Tony is slightly worried he’s about to get slapped by Mrs Hawkeye.

“Hey Tony, Scott” Clint nods to the pair and Tony feels like he’s entered another reality, because…what the hell? He thought everything was going to be weird and awkward, but instead Lang and Barton have arranged a playdate…which is actually still going to be weird and awkward. Just a different type of weird and awkward.

“Hey man” Scott grins at Clint as the man herds his children up the steps, “this is my daughter Cassie”.

“Hi”, Cassie gives the new arrivals a grin and a wave.

“I’m Lila”, Lila grin back at Cassie, with the same excited tone.

“And this Cooper and Nathaniel” Clint introduces the two boys.

Nathaniel hides his face in his mother’s neck, unsure of the new people, while Cooper ignores everyone as he’s focused on his phone.

Laura comes up behind the boy and plucks his phone from him, “you can have it back later”. She turns her attention then to Tony, shifting Nathaniel up higher on her hip, “thank you, Mr Stark, for getting this idiot back home”.

Well…that wasn’t what Tony was expecting, “it was nothing”.

“It wasn’t nothing. I can’t even imagine all the work it must have taken you to get the deal for Clint. I can’t thank you enough”.

“Just uh, call me Tony and we’ll call it even. Well that, and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid again”.

“Oh, trust me, he won’t be” Laura gives Clint a pointed look.

“Although, talking about stupid things…didn’t we talk about keeping Peter a _secret_?” Tony narrows his eyes at Clint.

“My kids are home schooled, so it’s not like they have anyone to tell. Plus, considering they are in the same boat as Peter, being kept hush hush for their safety and privacy, even if they did go to school, they wouldn’t go around telling anyone” Clint says, “and we’ve talked to them and they know that what happens here, stays here”.

“Like Vegas” Scott nods.

Just as Tony is really starting to wonder if he’s entered some strange alternative reality, Happy drives up the driveway of the compound, and Tony immediately feels relieved to have Peter here.

Peter frowns in confusion seeing his dad, Hawkeye, Antman and a few kids all standing outside of the compound as Happy slows the car to a stop. He’s guessing that the kids must be Hawkeyes and Antmans…but he doesn’t understand why they would be here. Weren’t they supposed to be on house arrest?

“Uh, thanks for the lift Happy” Peter says as he apprehensively get’s out of the car, “oh and thanks for the ice cream”.

“Anytime kid” Happy says, waiting for the kid to shut the door before driving off.

Peter makes his way up the steps slowly, his eyes flickering over to his dad, who looks both relieved and a little un-comfortable.

“Uh…what’s going on? Have I missed something?”

“You and me both apparently” Tony mumbles before speaking up for everyone to hear, “you remember Scott and Clint, right? You met them last month”.

Peter nods, “Hawkeye and Antman”.

“It’s just Scott now” Scott grins, “this is my daughter, Cassie”.

“Hi”, Cassie smiles.

“And you can just call me Clint, kid” Clint says as he wraps an arm around Laura, “this is my wife Laura. These are our kids; Cooper, Lila and Nathaniel. Coop is around the same age as you”.

“Oh God…” Cooper closes his eyes as he realises what’s going on, “is this a playdate?”

Peters eyes widen and he looks at Tony with a scandalized look of horror, “really Tony? You set up a playdate for me? I’m 15!”

“No, no. I did not set this up” Tony quickly tries to defend himself, “Scott and Clint have to visit the compound once a month as part of their house arrest, and they decide to set this up”.

“This is embarrassing” Cooper mutters, his head hanging in embarrassment.

“So embarrassing” Peter agrees, “wanna get out of here? We have a huge TV in the communal living room that we can play Mario Kart on, and it’s better than sticking around with the embarrassing parental people”.

“Please” Cooper practically begs, and both Cassie and Lila’s eyes light up in excitement.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m not embarrassing! I’m cool!” Tony states.

“Using the word cool just makes you even more embarrassing” Peter points out before moving past the man and indicating for the other kids to follow him as he enters the compound.

“You’d think, that, because our dads are superheroes, they’d be cool” Cooper shakes his head, “but, no”.

“My dad gets chased around his lab by a bot that like to spray him with a fire extinguisher regularly…” Peter sighs.

Cassie mutters an “awesome” and Lila nods her head in agreement.

* * *

“I’m bored” Lila huffs, flopping down on the couch so she’s now laying down.

“How can you be bored already? We’ve only been here an hour” Cooper rolls his eyes at his sister but doesn’t take his concentration off of Mario Kart. He’s so close to finally beating Peter at a race.

“I want to do something else”.

“Like what?” Peter asks the girl, grinning in victory as he win’s once more.

“Urgh, I give up. How are you so good?” Cooper groans, falling back into the couch in defeat.

Peter shrugs, “practice, I guess. Or I’m just naturally amazing”.

Cooper snorts in amusement and playfully shoves Peters shoulder.

“We could play tag” Cassie suggests, bringing the attention back to her and Lila.

“This place is huge. If we play tag, which by the way is a kid’s game, how would we even be able to find each other” Cooper points out.

“Well, there are a lot of labs and other dangerous places here, like the weapons storage area, so those will be off limits. That cut’s the size down by like half” Peter says. “F.R.I.D.A.Y is everywhere so she can let you guys know if you’re going somewhere you shouldn’t. She can also keep track of the game and announce when someone new has been tagged. You can do that, right F.R.I.D.A.Y?”

“Yes Peter, I would be happy to assist you in your game” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s Irish voice rings out.

“Come on Coop” Lila grins at her brother, “this is going to be fun!”

“Fine…but I’m not it!” Cooper yells as he vaults over the couch and runs out of the living room.

“Cheater” Lila huffs, watching her brother run away, “but I’m also not it”.

Lila chases after her brother, leaving Peter and Cassie behind. Cassie looks up at Peter, staring into his soul with her own puppy-dog eyes.

Peter sighs, dropping his head, “I’ll be it”.

“Thank you” Cassie grins at Peter before running off in the opposite direction to Cooper and Lila.

“Those are some cute puppy eyes” Peter mutters, flopping down on the couch, “F.R.I.D.A.Y, tell me when it’s been five minutes. I know this building a lot more than they do, so it’s only fair to give them a head start”.

“Of course, Peter” F.R.I.D.A.Y says.

Once the game begins it doesn’t take to long for Peter to find Lila.

Lila then finds Cassie.

Cassie, using her puppy-eyes power once more, get’s Peter to allow her to tag him.

Peter then manages to get Cooper.

Cooper, after attempting to get Peter back, gives up and tags Lila.

Lila quickly tags Cooper back before he could run off to far.

Cooper decides to try going after Peter again, and that’s when they run into the adults, minus Laura and Nathaniel as it was snack time for the toddler, who were walking down the hallway they were in.

“Help!” Peter yelps, dashing to hide behind the three men.

“What’s going on?” Tony frowns, worried that Cooper was picking on Peter or something. Both Scott and Clint frown in worry as well.

“Take the tag like a man” Cooper huffs, attempting to grab Peter between the three man barrier.

“I don’t want to take the tag like a man” Peter jumps back out of Coopers reach, “I don’t want to take the tag at all”.

“What?” Tony blinks, completely confused.

“Are you…playing tag?” Clint’s mouth twitches as he fights the smile that wants to form on his face.

“I am, but Peter’s is apparently playing hide and seek” Cooper snarks.

“I’m avoiding being tagged, which is the aim of the game” Peter sasses back.

Tony watches the scene, still slightly confused, “I was wrong…Peter is young enough for playdates apparently”.

Peter glares at Tony before looking at Cooper, “tag me”.

“Done” Cooper quickly tags Peter but doesn’t run away because he’s curious as to what Peter is up to.

“Peter is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y says.

“You have FRI in on this game?” Tony asks.

“Yep” Peter stares at Tony for a moment before tagging him, “tag, you’re it”.

“Boss is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y says, and Tony is pretty sure he could hear amusement in her voice.

“Oh no, no. I’m not playing tag. I’m a grown adult-“ Tony is cut off by both Peter and Clint snorting with laughter.

“You’re an adult?” Clint raises an eyebrow at him.

Tony stares at Clint for a moment before, “-tag!” He quickly pushes Peter into Clint and steps into the closest elevator.

“Mr Barton is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y says.

Peter looks at Tony in shock, “you betrayer! You’d just throw your son to the wolves to be eaten while you run away”.

“Yep” Tony grins as the elevator doors glide shut.

“Well…tag” Clint tags Peter and quickly runs off down the hallway, with Cooper following after him.

“Peter is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y says.

Peter and Scott stare at each other for a moment, and before Scott can react, Peter tags him and runs down the opposite direction of the hallway.

“Mr Lang is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y says once more.

“Wh-“ Scott blinks, “damn it”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many of you were hoping that Scott, Clint and the kids would be in the story, and that was always the plan. I always saw the kids getting to know each other and being friends, so this won't be the last time that they'll be in this story/series. If any of you are wondering on their ages, I personally see them as Cooper-14, Lila-10, Nathaniel-2 and Cassie-11, while Peter is 15 of course.
> 
> Also, for any people wondering about Peter's routine; he goes out as Spider-Man after school for a few hours, then goes back home to have dinner (refill his metabolism) and do his homework (which can take around an hour or two because Peter's a genius). Then Peter can go out as Spider-Man again until his curfew.
> 
> I enjoyed writing the MJ and Peter scene, because I just love that couple so much. They are so cute. That scene also lead to me writing the parent evening scene, which I had never planned on writing until I remembered that I needed the school to know about Peter. The scene was also a lot longer than I meant it, not that I'm sure you guys mind.
> 
> We had a little bit of May and Peter together in this chapter, as well as a bit more Happy jealousy and some dad moments from Tony.
> 
> Also, a little note. The last part of the chapter (with Scott, Clint and the kids) is a set a month after the parents evening thing. Just in case anyone is confused. 
> 
> Now, feel free to kudos and bookmark my story if you've been enjoying it so far. Also leave a review behind if you have the time because you all write such lovely reviews and they really make my day.
> 
> Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)


	5. Siberia and Dad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, first off: HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!! Sorry for the wait, but hopefully it's worth it.
> 
> Second: I’m not going to lie, I completely forgot about Vision! Oops… We’re just going to pretend that until now Vision was just away on a mission or something.
> 
> Also, since I’m not American I had to look up when and for how long schools in America have their summer holidays/breaks, turns out you guys have longer holidays than us here in England :(. Anyway, from what I’ve read different states do different times (apparently some start in May and end in August, some other start in June and end in September). I decided Midtown would have their summer breaks end of June till early September because it fits better with the ideas I have for my story. I just wanted to let you guys be aware.
> 
> (Also just incase some people become confused I'd like to clear up that when a meeting is about SI stuff it takes place in the city at SI, but when it's Avenger stuff it's at the compound.)
> 
> Anyway, I'll let you get on with the chapter.

Peter slides into his and Ned’s usual seats in the cafeteria as he waits for Ned to grab his lunch. It’s the Monday after Hawkeye and Antman had visited the compound with their kids, and they had their surprisingly fun game of tag. Peter is finding it hard _not_ telling Ned all about it. Now that Ned knows about Spider-Man, there aren’t any secrets between them…but this isn’t his secret to tell.

News about Hawkeye and Antman’s return after the ‘civil war’ was a private secret. Only those that need to know, know. Which means Peter can’t tell anyone about them and especially not about their kids.

Not that he would, of course. That would be a dick move, telling people who their dads are when his parentage is also being kept secret.

Peter had been surprised how much fun he had on Friday, with the other kids. Initially, he’d been mortified at having been set up for a playdate with a bunch of kids he’d never met, but they just seemed to bond quickly over their shared embarrassment and over the fact that they are all in the same boat. Being the secret children of superheroes.

He had been a little surprised at how well they all, he and Cooper especially, ended up getting along, because Peter’s always found it a little hard to make friends. That’s why it had always been just him and Ned, not that he’s complaining because Ned is the best friend he could ask for.

He also thought, to start with, that the game of tag was a bit childish…but that was some of the best fun he’s had. Peter still can’t believe that he actually got his dad involved in it. Both Pepper and Rhodey had found it hilarious when he told them about it later that evening after the Barton’s and Lang’s had gone home. F.R.I.D.A.Y even played some of the ‘best bits’ of the game.

That’s why it’s so hard not telling Ned about his weekend, because he had had such a great one. Plus, he’s sure that Ned and Cooper would also get along great.

“Ow!” A sharp kick to his shin bring Peter out of his thoughts. His eye’s snap up to see MJ sitting in front of him, which explains why his spidey-sense didn’t warn him. To him MJ, while terrifying, isn’t a threat. “Why’d you kick me?”

MJ shrugs, pulling out her book of the week, “you’ve been staring into space since I sat down. Figured I’d help bring you back down to Earth”.

“Thanks” Peter grumbles as he rubs his shin.

“You’re welcome”, MJ hides her smirk behind her book.

“Hey guys” Ned says as he sits down next to Peter.

“Hey” Peter smiles and MJ merely nods in acknowledgement.

“How was your weekend? Did you get much done with building the bot?” Ned asks, his voice trickling with excitement.

“It was great. I spent some time in the gym-”. Gym was the word they used in public now for Spider-Man training. Ever since MJ had pointed out just how bad he and Ned were at keeping his secret identity a secret, they’ve been working on being better. That means no whispering, because they aren’t subtle about it. If they want to talk about Spider-Man they have to do it in private or swap words out; like gym for training. “-and I’ve started working on the circuit board for the bot”.

“Thought of a name for the bot?” MJ pipes up.

“You sound like dad-I mean Tony” Peter flushes red at the slip of the tongue. “he keeps asking if I’ve thought of a name yet”.

“And have you?”

“I haven’t even finished making him yet. Most people don’t name their babies until a_fter_ the baby is born”.

“So…the bot is your baby?” MJ lowers her book to raise an eyebrow at Peter. “Never took you for a teen dad”.

“That’s not…you…” Peter stutters as MJ lifts up her phone to take a quick picture of his blushing crisis face.

“Thank you for that. I was running low on your crisis faces” MJ picks her book back up and continues reading like she never stopped.

“Glad to be of help” Peter ignores the feeling running through him at the thought that, apparently, MJ has multiple pictures of him.

Peter turns to Ned, who had been watching the exchange with a grin on his face, and they start talking about the circuit board he’s building and his other plans for the bot. The conversation eventually tapers off into them talking about R2-D2 and the workings of a lightsabre.

Peter’s not sure how, it could have been his growing frustration of not finding anything, but eventually he brings up the conversation he overheard between Pepper and Tony, about something happening between Captain America and his dad in Siberia.

“Maybe he has a record of what happened somewhere” Ned suggests. “I mean, didn’t you say your dad put a ‘Baby Monitor’ protocol in your suit. So that everything you do is recorded”.

“Yeah?” Peter mentally winces in embarrassment and doesn’t look at MJ when Ned mentions the ‘Baby Monitor’ protocol. That’s not going to make him look cool in front of her, she already thinks he’s a dork. He really needs Tony to stop naming things with baby terms.

“So, maybe he has that function in his suit too”.

Peter’s face brightens in joy, “Ned, you’re the best!”

“Just the guy-in-the-chair doing his job” Ned grins. “If your dad wore his suit in Siberia, then you can find the recording for it and see what happened”.

MJ puts her book down and rests her crossed arms on the table, as she leans forward, “while that’s a good idea, just how will you get access to the recordings? If it’s something personal and private that he doesn’t want anyone to know about, it’s not going to be easy to find”.

“True…but Ned was able to hack my suit once. Back in DC-“ Peter begins.

“-Oh no, no. I can’t. I’m sorry Peter, but I’m not hacking into Ironman’s things again. He’ll kill me or something!”

“He’s not going to kill a kid”, MJ rolls her eyes. “He’d just blacklist you from any and all good colleges”.

“That’s even worse” Ned panics.

“He’s not going to do that” Peter says, “but it’s fine…I can see if maybe F.R.I.D.A.Y can help me out”. He doesn’t want to get Ned in trouble with his dad. Tony had let the first hacking go unpunished, with only a slight scolding, because he’d been impressed at Ned’s skills. However, he doubts that’d he’d be so forgiving a second time. “Since she run’s basically everything, she’s bound to have what happened stored away somewhere”.

“And you’re going to get her to let you see it how exactly?” MJ asks.

“I’ll say please” Peter shrugs because he wasn’t sure yet himself, but he had a week to think on it because this weekend was his weekend with May. “…F.R.I.D.A.Y likes me. I’m sure she’ll help me out”.

* * *

“I’m afraid I can’t give you access to those logs Peter” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice almost sounds apologetic.

Peter’s groan is muffled, by the fabric of his sleeves on the hoodie he’s wearing, as he slams his face into his arms that are resting on the lab table in front of him

It had been a week since Ned suggested that his dad may have kept records or something of what happened in Siberia, and now it’s his weekend with Tony.

All he had to do was find some time away from his dad so that he could talk to F.R.I.D.A.Y, which kind of seemed impossible because his dad likes to spend time with him, which of course normally Peter loves.

However, it seemed like luck was on his side, to begin with anyway, because as Happy had dropped him off he told him that Tony was stuck in a meeting and would be there for another hour or two. That, Peter had thought, was the perfect time to _finally_ find out about Siberia. He had gone straight to Tony’s private lab because there was no chance that anyone would disturb him there, as he was only one of four people that actually had access to it.

All he had to do once he sat down on a stool in the lab, was ask F.R.I.D.A.Y the questions that had been burning in the back of his mind for the past month.

Peter was _finally_ going to know what Captain America did to his dad…

And then F.R.I.D.A.Y decides to ruin it all by telling him that she can’t show him or tell him about Siberia.

Although on the bright side, this does confirm that the Ironman suit did record what happened in Siberia…He’s just not going to know what happened.

Peter lifts his head up and stares at the ceiling where he’s always imagined F.R.I.D.A.Y being, “come on F.R.I…I won’t tell anyone. Please”.

“I’m sorry Peter, but those logs are available to no one other than Boss”.

He is definitely _not_ pouting at the AI…”you can’t even show me a teeny tiny little bit?”

“Not even a teeny tiny little bit, Peter” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice now sounds slightly amused with him.

Peter holds back another groan as he slams his head back down into his arms. There is no way F.R.I.D.A.Y is going to go against his dad. She may mess around over the little things, like backing Pepper up in an argument against Tony or locking Tony out of the lab when he’s been rude to her, but she wouldn’t give up his secrets and betray him. Looking out for his dad is F.R.I.D.A.Y’s top priority.

…wait…maybe he could use that.

Peter sits back up and thinks carefully how he’s going to word this. “F.R.I.D.A.Y…”

“Yes Peter?”

“Tony is trying to get the ‘rogue’ Avengers pardoned, isn’t he?” It wasn’t really a question because his dad had briefly told him that, be he’d never gone into detail about it. “If he gets them pardoned, they’d come back here, to the compound, wouldn’t they?”

“That is correct”.

“One of those Avengers is Captain America... If something happened between Tony and Captain America, then shouldn’t I know about it? That way I can help keep an eye on them and help keep dad safe”.

Peter waits for the AI to answer, and it seems like F.R.I.D.A.Y is hesitating…can AI’s hesitate?

“Come on FRI. Isn’t your main priority to keep da-Tony safe? So surely, if something happened between him and Captain America then I should know about it, so that I can help keep him safe”.

“My main priority is keeping you safe Peter”.

Peter blinks, “what?”

“My main priority used to be keeping Boss safe. After Boss found out that you were his son, he changed my priority to you”.

Peter’s mind froze for a moment and he’s not sure why…Tony is his dad, so of course he’d be the man’s first priority…yet somehow, actually hearing it out loud…it gave him a funny feeling in his chest.

He shakes himself out of his mind, because now is not the time to think about that. Not when he’s so close to getting answers.

“Okay well…still, if something happened in Siberia, then it may not be safe for me with the Avengers here. Not when I don’t know the full story”.

“I’m not sure if it is wise for you to see the footage…I don’t think Boss would like you viewing it” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice, if Peter isn’t mistaken, almost sounds unsure.

“The best way for me to be safe, is for me to know what happened in Siberia…please FRI”, now Peter is pouting.

“Okay” F.R.I.D.A.Y reluctantly says.

* * *

Tony pretends, once more, that he doesn’t feel Pepper’s glare that’s aimed at his head, as he stares out the window. Watching the occasional bird fly past has been more interesting than this meeting.

Who’s he kidding? Watching paint dry would be more interesting than this pointless meeting.

There were a few reasons why he made Pepper the CEO of SI, and this was one of the main ones. He hates meetings. He hates meetings almost as much as he hates Secretary Ross, and that’s saying something considering how he feels like he could just shoot him with one of his repulsers most of the time...that would certainly solve a lot of problems too.

Tony swears that Pepper only makes him come to meetings as some kind of twisted punishment for when he’s done something to piss her off... It could also be because he’s still Tony Stark and is still the CTO and all that crap, but he’d rather blame his misery on Pepper.

Just not to her face because he likes living.

He has to actually restrain himself from throwing himself out of the window when Price pulls out _another_ file for them to go over. This meeting should have been over about half an hour ago, or about a minute after it started in Tony’s opinion. It was cutting into his time with Peter, and he was really starting to get bored and frustrated.

Tony is glad when his phone beeps, and even though Pepper narrows her eyes at him, she can’t stop him from answering it. She makes Tony put his phone on private so that he can’t get distracted during meetings…or even more distracted, she should say. F.R.I.D.A.Y will only bypass the private mode to interrupt a meeting if there is an emergency.

“Excuse me for a moment” Tony stands from his chair and waves his phone, “I just need to take this”.

“Mister Stark-“ Mr Price begins to say, but Tony is already out of the room.

“What’s up baby girl?” Tony asks, leaning against the wall outside of the conference room. F.R.I.D.A.Y was, of course, installed at SI. It made everything run smoother and was an extra piece of security for his building.

“Boss, Peter is having a panic attack”.

F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice makes him still for a second as his chest and throat tighten in his own panic. That was something he’d hoped Peter would never have to experience, but clearly his son is even more like him then he originally thought.

His breathing comes out a little short for a second, and for a moment Tony is worried that he’ll have a panic attack of his own, but he quickly shakes of the panic that was forming inside of him because his kid needs him.

“What do you mean Peter’s having a panic attack?” Tony quickly starts making his way out of SI as he sends a text to Pepper letting her know that Peter is the emergency.

“I mean Peter is experiencing signs of a panic attack. He appeared to become distorted and collapsed to the floor. His breathing is short and fast, and his heart rate has increased. He is not responding to myself or the bots”.

“Where is he?”

“Your lab, Boss”.

The second he gets out of the building he activates his travel suit, not wasting anytime to get to his son. He makes the quick decision to put the suit on auto pilot because he knows that’s he’s freaking out a bit too much to fly properly.

“Do you know what caused the panic attack? Did something happen at school?” Tony’s eyebrows frown in confusion when F.R.I.D.A.Y doesn’t immediately respond. “FRI?”

“I believe this was my fault” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice sound as remorseful as an AI can sound.

“What do you mean this was your fault?”

“I’m sorry Boss, I let Peter see the footage from your suit. The one from Siberia”.

Tony is now thankful that he did put the suit on auto pilot as the memories hit him like a bullet train. He’s never forgotten what happened, how could he? But he actively tries not to think about it.

Siberia.

Steve.

The betrayal.

His parent’s murder.

It’s hard to not think about it. Especially when he has to go have his meetings with the UN and Accords Committee about the rogues and the pardons he’s trying to get for them. Well not for them, but for the safety of the Earth.

But God…Peter knows.

He never wanted Peter to know about that. He didn’t what to burden his son with the knowledge that he almost died.

Shit…he would have died before knowing about Peter if Vision hadn’t have found him when he did.

Tony swallows hard, his throat dry and he feels like he’s suffocating. He’s aware that his breathing is becoming short and sharp, and that he wasn’t this hot a few minutes ago.

He _can’t_ panic now. Peter needs him!

He closes his eyes as he tries to take deep breaths.

He can’t fall apart when his son needs him.

It takes Tony longer than he’d like to get to the compound and he practically stumbles out of the suit the moment it lands. He quickly heads towards his lab, a little worried about the suit he might see when he gets there.

“Why did you show Peter the footage of Siberia?” Tony asks because she shouldn’t have done that. It was in a private file that only he had access to.

“Peter insisted on seeing it. While I was reluctant, he persuaded me. I’m sorry Boss”.

“How did Peter know about the footage to begin with?” Tony frowns, his lab doors in sight. “Actually, how did he even know about Siberia?”

“I don’t know Boss” F.R.I.D.A.Y says as Tony walks into the lab and freezes at the sight of Peter on the floor. His legs pulled up to his chest and his face in his knees, with his arms wrapped his head.

He’s curled up in a shaking ball and Tony’s never seen him look as small as he is now.

The bots are all crowding around Peter and their beeps are ranging from short panicked beeps, to whiney sad beeps. Dum-E has a smoothie in his claw that he’s attempting to give to Peter, U has the blanket in his claw and Butterfingers looks like he’s attempting to pat Peter on his back. They are all clearly distressed. They want to help Peter, but don’t know how and it’s freaking them out.

He can figure out how Peter knew about it later, first he has to help his kid. It doesn’t take a genius to know that, with all the loss Peter had already experienced in his short life, seeing what happened in Siberia would have brought back all the memories of losing his parents and uncle. Those memories would have only added fuel to the panic attack.

“Boy’s back. Give Peter some space” Tony softly demands and for once the bots comply.

He knows that Peter’s senses are a lot more sensitive then everyone else’s, or as Peter had said ‘his senses were dialled to eleven’. So there’s a good chance that a panic attack would make them go a little haywire, maybe even cause him to have a sensory overload.

“FRI, protocol ‘Nap Time’ and lock down the lab” Tony says as he quietly, but quickly, makes his way over to Peter as F.R.I.D.A.Y dims the lights down until it’s almost pitch black but not quite.

Tony holds in a groan as he lowers himself to the floor next to Peter. He isn’t as young as he used to be, and neither are his knees or back.

“Peter” Tony’s voice is barely above a whisper. With his enhanced hearing, Peter can hear him, though his son makes no show of hearing him. He gently places his hand on the back of Peter’s neck, feeling just how much his son is shaking, and circles his fingers around the hair on the bottom of his head. “Peter, look at me”.

The teen, again, doesn’t show that he heard him. The only thing Tony can hear is Peters fast, harsh breathing.

Never being on this side of a panic attack, Tony wasn’t completely sure what to do. He figured his best bet was to do what Rhodey would normally do for him, which was to get him focusing and breathing properly.

He shuffles slightly so he’s almost in front of Peter and he carefully pulls the boy’s arms, that are wrapped over his head, off of his head. He still has no reaction from Peter, which was freaking him out, but he bit down on his panic.

“Come on Peter, look at me” Tony gently, but firmly, lifts Peter’s head up and his heart breaks at the sight of his son’s face.

Peter’s face is red and wet, the knees of his jeans are damp with his tears that are still falling from his eyes. He’s choking for breath, barely letting any air into his lungs. But the part that hurt the most to see, was the terror in Peters wide eyes.

“Peter, bambino, you need to breath, okay?” Tony uses the sleeve of his suit jacket to wipe away some of the tears and snot from Peter’s face. “I know you saw what happened in Siberia, and I’m so sorry you saw that, but it’s okay. I’m okay…I got hurt, but I’m still here”.

Peter lets out a sob and all Tony wants to do is pull him into a hug, but he needs Peter breathing normally first.

What would Rhodey do?

“Okay Peter, can you copy my breathing?” Hopefully he’s not breath erratically himself, “take a deep breath in, like this”. Tony takes a deep breath in, but Peter struggles to copy.

He needs to get Peter’s focus away from the panic attack and Siberia.

“Did I tell you that my mum used to play the piano? She would usually play it late at night whenever my dad was away on business. When I was little, I’d sometimes wake up in the night from a nightmare and hear her playing on it. The music was soft and gentle, and it seemed like it would almost float down the hallway. I’d get out of bed and follow the sound to my mum. She’d see me and instead of sending me back to bed, she’d pull me onto her lap and show me the piece of music she was playing. It would always sooth me back to sleep, the warmth and safety of my mother arms and the gentle tune of the piano”.

Tony pauses for a moment, thinking about what else he could say since this seems to be working. Peter is still breathing rapidly, but his breaths aren’t as harsh as they had been a few minutes ago.

“Did I ever tell you about Jarvis? The man, not the AI…though I did have an AI called JARVIS. He was my first and he ran everything that F.R.I.D.A.Y now runs. When I had him…I would tell people that JARVIS stood for ‘Just A Rather Very Intelligent System’…but really, I named him after my family’s butler, Edwin Jarvis. He…he helped raise me a lot growing up. He and his wife. They were like a second set of parents…or maybe like grandparents. Jarvis was the one who would drive me to school and pick me up again at the end of the day. He was the one who taught me how to tie my tie when I was younger…and tie my shoes laces too I believe. He had been more than just a butler”.

While Peter is still stuttering out a few breaths here and there, his breathing is mostly back to normal, and Tony can feel himself feeling calmer now that he’s gotten Peter to use his lungs again.

“That’s it bambino” Tony rubs a hand up and down Peters back as the boy starts wiping his wet face, finally moving on his own.

“How, how…why would…I-I-I didn’t” Peter struggles to get out his words, still catching his breath and his mind completely jumbled.

“It’s okay, it’s okay” Tony sooths.

“No, no…it’s not. It’s not-“.

“I’m still here aren’t I?”

“Dad” Peter chokes out, his eyes watering again as he makes eye contact with his dad.

It takes Tony a second to realise what Peter just called him and another second to wrap his arms around his son, pulling him in tight. He wraps one arm over Peter’s back and the other he wraps around Peter’s shoulders, using his hand to cradle the back of his son’s head. He feels Peter grip onto his shirt tightly as he feels a wet patch grow. He mutters soft, quiet reassurances into Peter’s ears.

It takes another ten minutes before he feels Peter’s sobs start to taper off into sniffles.

He see’s U slowly making his way towards them with the blanket still in his claw, clearly still wanting to do something to help his little brother. Tony holds outs his hand and takes the blanket from the bot.

“Thank you, U” Tony says as he wraps the blanket around Peter before pulling him away, just slightly. “I’m so sorry Peter. You shouldn’t have had to have seen that”.

“I just…I overheard you and Pepper talking…about the Black Widow betraying you and-and Captain America doing something to you in Siberia and-and, I just…”.

“It’s okay. Peter, it’s okay” Tony runs his hand threw Peters curls.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y said that I shouldn’t watch it, but I didn’t listen”.

“I know, it’s okay”.

“I’m sorry”.

“You have nothing to be sorry for Roo” Tony sighs.

“I just…_how?_ How could he attack you like that? You gave him a place to live and you were his friend. How could he beat you up like that?”

“Everyone’s emotions were running high-“.

“He didn’t just see his parents be murdered”.

Tony had no answer for that.

“He kept hitting you, even though you were already down” Peters starts breathing faster again. “He nearly killed you…you-you could have died and then I-“.

“But I’m not dead though, am I” Tony interrupts quickly, “I’m alive and fine”.

“That doesn’t make what happened okay”.

Tony sighs softly, “no…it doesn’t”.

“Then why are you working so hard to get the UN to pardon the rogues? After what they did…what _he_ did?” Peter looks at his father, sniffling as he wipes his nose with his hoodie sleeve, “the other rogues chose not to sign the accords, that’s their problem, and he almost beat you to death. How can you get him pardoned and just-just welcome him back here? It’s not right!”

“I know it’s not right Peter, and trust me, I’m not doing it because I want to-“.

“Then why?”

“The world needs the Avengers. All of the Avengers” Tony rubs hand over his tired face, “Earth isn’t the only planet in the universe…there are so many other worlds up there, and unfortunately most of them are more advanced than we are. If they were to attack us right now…we wouldn’t stand a chance. The Army can’t win a fight against an alien army that has alien weapons-“.

“Like the ones the Vulture was selling”.

“Yeah, like those. If the Earth is going to stand a chance at winning a fight like that…it needs the Avengers”.

“Is it likely that were going to get attack?” Peter asks quietly, slight fear in his voice.

“…I don’t know. I really don’t know” Tony shakes his head. “However, I’d rather be prepared for a fight that doesn’t happen, than not be ready for one that does”.

Unfortunately, Peter understands his dad’s reasoning…it makes sense.

Doesn’t mean he has to like it though.

Or like Captain America either.

“I’m sorry for sticking my nose into your private stuff” Peter mumbles.

“It’s okay” Tony ruffles the mop of curls, “however next time maybe talk to me first at the very least”.

“I think I can do that” Peter manages a weak grin that quickly fades, “you’re okay now, right? I mean, I know your alive but…he slammed the shield into your chest. It could have done so much damage-”

“I’m fine, I swear” Tony reassures him, pulling him into another hug. “I won’t lie. There had been some damage, yes…but I’m absolutely fine now”.

“Good because I can’t…I can’t lose you”. The ‘_too_’ wasn’t said but was implied.

Tony tightens his hold on Peter, and they sit there for a minute, just holding on to each other. This was definitely not how Tony thought his day was going to go and he’s definitely going to have to go and have a panic attack of his own once Peter is in bed.

“You called me dad” Tony says suddenly, and he feels Peter tense in his arms.

“It…it just slipped out. I’m sorry” Peter pulls out of the hug, his face heating up from embarrassment.

“It’s not…you don’t have to be sorry. I mean, I am your dad”.

Peter tilts his head at Tony, his eyes a mixture of confusion and hope, “you wouldn’t mind me calling you that?”

“I don’t mind at all Peter. I…I’ve been waiting for you to call me dad” screw it, they’re already doing the emotional stuff, they may as well continue while they’re here. Get it all out in the open.

Peters eyes widen, “wait, you’ve been wanting for me to call you dad?”

“Yes”

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to call you dad, so I kept calling you Tony” Peter groans.

“I wasn’t sure that _you_ wanted to call me dad, so I just let you call me Tony”.

“We really need to get better at communicating…dad”.

“Clearly” Tony says. A smile playing on his lips, happy that Peter was slowly getting back to his normal self and that he’s finally got the ‘dad’ title. “Right, I’m going to need your help. While I’m still young, I’m just not quite as young as I used to be, and I don’t think I can get up by myself”.

A smirk twitches on Peter’s mouth and he stands up, the blanket still draped over his shoulders. He pulls his dad to his feet and snorts when his dad’s bones start cracking, “yeah…you’re still young”.

“Brat” Tony glares at his son. “FRI, you can turn off the ‘Nap Time’ protocol”.

“You need to stop with the baby names for protocols, it’s embarrassing” Peter says as he uses the edge of the blanket to dry his face.

“That’s the idea” Tony herds the boy towards the lab-couch. “Come on, I know how exhausting panic attacks are. Both physically and emotionally”.

Peter doesn’t fight as Tony pushes him into the couch, but he does pull on his dad’s arm to bring him down on the couch too. He kicks off his shoes and snuggles up to his father, his feet wedged under his dad’s thighs and rests his head on his chest. He presses his ear firmly to his dad’s chest, listening to the heartbeat that proves that he’s here and alive.

“Comfy?” Tony’s raises an amused eyebrow.

Peter hums and Tony starts running his fingers threw his hair.

“I think it’s best if we just have a quiet weekend to ourselves” Tony sighs and Peter nods in agreement, “I think after…everything that’s happened today, we should just spend the weekend watching crap telly and eating ice cream”.

“I’ve been eating so much ice cream recently. Happy always seems to want to stop and get ice cream when he picks me up from school”.

Tony snorts, “you’re adorably innocent and oblivious sometimes”.

Peter frowns in confusion, “what do you mean?”

“There’s a reason why Happy’s been stuffing you with ice cream”.

“Wait, he’s been buying me ice cream for a reason?” Peter sit’s up slightly to look at his dad’s face.

Tony nods, a smirk on his lips, “he’s jealous of Rhodey. They’re having a little feud over you actually”.

“What? Why?”

“Because Rhodey is ‘uncle Rhodey’ and he’s just Happy. That’s why he’s buying you ice cream; he’s trying to sway you into to calling him uncle Happy without having to ask you to call him that”.

Peter blinks, “…Happy…wants me to call him uncle? I thought I annoyed him”.

“You do annoy him, just not nearly as much as you used to, but that’s part of being a family” Tony shrugs, “they annoy you, but you still love them”.

“So, I should start calling him uncle Happy?”

“If you’re comfortable doing it, although…if I was you, I’d milk this for a bit longer. See what else Happy might do for you if he thinks it’ll get him closer to being an uncle”.

“That’s mean” Peter gives Tony a look.

“It’s not mean, you’re just nice”.

“What’s wrong with being nice?”

“Absolutely nothing” Tony pulls Peter back into his chest.

Dum-E rolls over with the smoothie from earlier, holding his claw out for Tony to take the drink. The man rolls his eyes at the bot but accepts the drink because he doesn’t want to upset him. Dum-E lets out a happy beep and wheels back to his brothers in the corner.

“What were we going to do this weekend?” Peter asks, letting his eyes close as he rests back into his father’s chest. “You said that it would be best for us to have a quiet weekend, implying that it wasn’t going to be before”.

“I figured that we’d go visit Barton and Lang for their check up this week, but I can just call them instead”.

Peter’s eyes shoot open, “you don’t have to change the plan because of me. I’m fine, we can still go”.

“It’s fine Peter, we can visit another weekend” Tony reassures him. “We’ve both, you especially, have been shaken up today. There’s nothing wrong with having a quiet weekend every now and then…or at least that’s what Pepper tells me”.

“And you should all ways listen to Pepper”.

“That you should” Tony nods, returning his hand to Peter’s curls. “Now, have a nap Spider-baby. No arguments, I know you’re tired after everything”.

“Not a baby” Peter groans, closing his tired eyes once more. “…dad?”

“Yeah, Pete?”

“Last month, when you came to my parent’s evening…Principal Morita said about my name staying as Parker” Peter pauses, trying to think about how to best word what he wants to say. “I like being Parker, but I wouldn’t mind being a Stark. Like maybe have it hyphenated. I know that I couldn’t really use it outside of the compound because of everything being a secret but I jus-“.

“I would love for you to be a Stark” Tony feels warmth flood threw him. When he had first found out about Peter, he was worried that being a Stark would mess the boy up. He still is…but he’s come to realise that it isn’t the Stark name that screws people up, it’s the DNA. Which means its unfortunately already in Peter’s DNA. Though Tony will be damn if he let’s Peter become as messed up as he is.

Besides, he really likes the sound of Peter Parker-Stark.

“Yeah?”

“Peter Parker-Stark has a good ring to it” Tony nods absentmindedly. “We can get your name legally change to that if you want”.

“What about the press?”

“We can seal it up so the pack of desperate stories seekers can’t find it”.

“I think I should talk to aunt May before I make any decisions”.

“Take as long as you need to think it over…just remember that just because you’re a Stark doesn’t mean you’re any less a Parker”.

“…thanks dad”.

Tony never knew just how much that word would make him feel. It was like pride and happiness and love just exploded inside of him.

He knows he’s never going to get tired of hearing that word.

* * *

Tony knew that spending the weekend together wasn’t going to magically make everything better, Peter had seen his father get beaten up by someone who he had viewed as a hero. It was going to take some time for Peter to actually get over the Siberia footage, but he definitely felt like they were heading in the right direction…for both of them.

So, he and Peter spent the weekend mostly curled up either in the lab working on Peter’s little bot or in the living room watching movies and eating junk food. Both Pepper and May scolded them for the junk food part, although only light heartedly.

The weekend after that Peter spent watching movies with May and hanging out with Ned and MJ, which was refreshing because he felt like he hadn’t properly spent time with his friends outside of school in a while. The had asked him if he found out what had happened in Siberia and he just told them that he got what he wanted but it was personal. While Ned clearly wanted to know, they both respected his privacy.

The next weekend, Peter was at the compound again…along with Scott, Clint and the three oldest kids. This time Laura had stayed at home with Nathaniel. Peter had been a little stand off-ish with Scott and Clint to start with, but Tony had pulled him aside and told him that they knew nothing about Siberia and that they hadn’t really known what they got their selves involved in when they helped Rogers. Which Peter had been glad about because he genuinely liked the men.

The game of tag started, once again, not even an hour into the visit. Very quickly the three men also got pulled into it again, along with Rhodey and Vision this time. However, they had to set up some rules because the android kept cheating by phasing through everyone to avoid being tagged. Although Cassie had found that hilarious.

Peter was able to _actually_ get Happy to join the game towards the end when he had shown up to drop Pepper off. He decided to try the ‘milking it’ idea that his dad had suggested, mostly just to see if his dad was actually serious about Happy being jealous. So, when Happy had scoffed at the idea of playing tag, Peter simply said that “uncle Rhodey is playing” and to his surprise, it actually worked.

He knew it was only fair to put Happy out of his misery. So, at the end of the game Peter said, ‘thanks for playing uncle Happy’, and he swears he saw the man tear up for a second before he had mumbled a ‘whatever’ and left. From then on, he was uncle Happy and Peter was happy to see that his dad was right about the man wanting the title…not that Happy ever said it outright of course.

Peter could also see what his dad meant when he had said that Happy and Rhodey appeared to have a little rivalry of some kind over him. He’s noticed that whenever they are in a room together…it’s almost like they’re sizing each other up. Tony, of course, finds it hilarious while Pepper just shakes her head at them, and Peter just remains his normal confused self. He’s never had people fight over his wanting his attention before.

A couple of weeks later, a month after they were originally supposed to take the trip, Tony and Peter visit Scott and Clint on Peter’s next weekend with his dad.

They visited the Barton family on the Saturday. Their home wasn’t what Peter expected, a farm in the middle of nowhere…although he didn’t really know what kind of home he expected from the archer.

Peter spent most of the day hanging out with Cooper and playing with their dog, Lucky, who was just a dopey but lovable mess of fur. Whiles he’s always wanted a dog, he’s never had one, so it was great getting to play with Lucky.

It turns out, that because Cooper and Lila are home-schooled and live in the middle of nowhere, they don’t have any friends, nor have they even spent much time with other kids their age. Which is probably why he and Cooper got along so well, because the boy was just as socially awkward as he was.

Before they left the farm, he and Cooper exchanged phone numbers. Both boys, especially Cooper, happy to have found a new friendship.

On the Sunday Peter and Tony then visited Scott and Cassie. Since Maggie, Scott’s ex-wife, was a lovely woman, she allowed Scott to have Cassie every other weekend. Those weekends coincidently were the same weekends that Tony has Peter, which Tony was thankful for because it meant he could drag Peter along. If he had to go alone it would be so awkward considering he doesn’t really know the man like he knows Clint.

While there, Peter met Cassie’s giant pet ant; Ant-abelle. Tony will deny it till the day he dies if anyone ever asks if he screamed when Ant-abelle came charging out of nowhere. Whereas Peter will confirm till the day he dies that his dad did in fact scream, which leads to Tony claiming that Dum-E is now his favourite child.

Ned and MJ finally got to come to the compound one Wednesday afternoon. Although to MJ’s disappoint meant, she didn’t get to meet Pepper because she was at work. Ned was, of course, practically hyperventilating in excitement and almost cried when he met Tony. Whereas MJ was her usual self and merely looked Tony up and down with little interest. Though she did say that she liked the green energy work that SI was doing, and Tony figured that was probably the best and only complement he was going to get from the girl. She, scarily, reminded him of a younger version of Pepper, which is both good and bad. The world needs more Peppers…but Peppers can be terrifying when angered.

Of course, after Peter’s friends had left, Tony couldn’t stop himself from teasing his son about MJ and his not so little crush on her. It was amusing that his son thought that he would forget about that. Even if he had forgotten, the fact that Peter basically turned into a tomato every time MJ nudged him or snarked at him, would have been hard to miss. Even for Tony.

With how much fun he’s been having the last couple of months, Peter’s barely had anytime to even think much about Siberia or the rogues. Admittedly, he had a few nightmares the first couple of weeks after finding out everything; all the same thing, him losing yet _another_ person his loves. But he’s managed to work through that with his dad, because one positive to snooping in his dad’s private stuff is that now their relationship is stronger than ever.

Now, he’s kind of waiting for the ‘Parker Luck’ to hit them, while praying that it doesn’t.

* * *

The months go by; April turning into May, then June and July and soon it had been five months since Tony had got Scott and Clint their house arrest deals. He has to admit, as much as he hates that stupid name Scott came up with; ‘Dad-Vengers’, he has actually enjoyed having the men as kind of friends. He’s pretty sure that he and Clint might be closer now than they had been before the Accords/Germany fiasco. It’s just…it’s nice knowing other dad’s that he can talk to about Peter and get advice from…God he’s turned into some kind of soccer mum or something.

It had also been six months since finding out about Peter being his son, though it’s been three since he officially become ‘dad’. He can believe it’s been half a year since then. It both feels longer than that and like it was just yesterday.

Tony was happier than he thinks he’s ever been.

He has his son, his fiancée, his best friend, his Happy and his son scary but hot aunt…and sure, he’ll include Legolas and Stuart Little along with their offspring.

The key word however; _was_.

He was happy.

And now…now his blood pressure is so high it’s going to give his doctor high blood pressure.

He knew that this day would come eventually…he was _trying_ to make it happen. For the safety of the Earth.

Doesn’t mean it didn’t scare the crap out of him when he actually managed to get the pardons for the rogues last month.

Thank God it was Peter’s weekend with aunt Hottie when both the UN and Accords committee almost all agreed to the pardons, because he spent the enter two days in and out of panic attacks. He couldn’t even enjoy the look on Ross’s angry red face, after he found out the pardons were accepted, because he was freaking out so much.

While the UN agreed to the pardons, there were still details that needed to be worked out and plans made, so Tony has spent the past month working out everything needed to bring the rogues back.

He knows that Peter knows that something has happened because of his spidey-sense thing. His son can tell that he’s been getting tenser as the month’s gone on, even thought he’s been trying to act casually.

Clearly, he’s failing.

Tony closes his eyes and takes some deep breaths to control his panic.

“You don’t have to be here. Me and Vision can handle this” Rhodey squeezes Tony’s shoulder as they wait in one of the compounds the conference room.

Tony hates these conference rooms.

It’s now Friday, because apparently everything has to always happen on a Friday, and it’s been a month since the pardons were agreed.

…and now the rogues are actually coming back.

_Are_ back.

Merely minutes away.

“I’m fine” Tony huffs, though he shoves his tinted glasses on his face. They are a great little mask to wear so that he can see the emotions running threw their eyes, but they can’t see his. Simple but so effective.

They’re kind of like a security blanket.

“If I may, you don’t seem fine, Sir” Vision says.

“Boss, your heart rate is still increasing” F.R.I.D.A.Y adds.

“What is this? Gang up on Tony day?” Tony groans, his foot tapping nervously. “Obviously I’m not fine, okay? When have I ever actually been?”

“Tony” Rhodey gives him a pointed look.

“Just…I’ll be fine, just stay with me” Tony says in a softer tone, his anxiety showing clear as anything.

“Always” Rhodey gives Tony’s shoulder one more squeeze before giving it a quick pat.

A knock on the door makes Tony want to physically throw up as his heart slams painfully against his chest. He grips the arms of his chair and fights down his panic.

He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t keel over with a heart attack by the end of this.

* * *

“Thanks uncle Happy” Peter grins as he slides out of the car.

“See you later kid” Happy nods before driving off to go back to his proper job.

Ever since the summer break began, Peter has been sticking with the split living arrangements that they had all agreed on, with a few extra days here and there with his dad. Although he has been arriving earlier at the compound now that he doesn’t have school, which is great because it’s more time with his dad.

Plus, this is the weekend where Scott, Clint, Cooper and the girls will be visiting, and the previous visits prove that it will be a great day.

He still really wishes he could tell Ned and MJ about it because he’s sure that Ned and Cooper would get on well, which would also give Cooper another friend. However, he respects Clint wanting to keep his kids safe. Though now it feels almost like he’s leading three lives.

At school and with aunt May he’s Peter Parker, when he’s on patrol he’s Spider-Man and then when he’s at the compound he’s Peter Parker-Stark.

It’s a little hectic juggling all of that. Though now, with it being the summer holidays, he doesn’t have to worry about school. So, that’s at least one major thing less to stress about.

“Afternoon, FRI” Peter says as he walks into the building.

“Hello, Little Boss” F.R.I.D.A.Y says. His dad had programmed F.R.I.D.A.Y into calling him ‘Little Boss’ the day after he had called him dad. It was a bit embarrassing but mostly Peter found it made him all warm and gooey on the inside. “Boss’s heart rate is increasing to level’s that are not healthy for him, and he’s showing signs of distress. I recommended that you go to him as your presence usually helps him”.

Peter has learnt that it’s not uncommon for his dad to panic about things. Tony had been honest with talking to him about his own panic attacks the day after Peter had had his. He’s also seen a couple of them, although Tony had said that they were only minor panics and not a full-on attack. But those were enough to freak him out, because he didn’t like seeing his dad scared.

Which is why, hearing F.R.I.D.A.Y say that his dad was currently panicking enough that his heart rate is getting dangerous for him, Peter practically sprints to the closet elevator.

He doesn’t even have to tell F.R.I.D.A.Y to take him to his dad as she’s already moving.

Peter knows his dad has a few triggers that can send him into a panic, and he wonders just what it was that freaked him out this bad.

“Boss is in conference room 1” F.R.I.D.A.Y says as the elevator doors glide open and Peter nearly stumbles on his own feet in his rush to the room.

He barely stops himself from slamming the door open in his panic to get to his dad. His eyes briefly flicker across all the people in the room, before they land on his dad who, while looking tense and uncomfortable, doesn’t seem to be in danger. Uncle Rhodey is standing next to him, also standing ridged and tense. Peters sure that if there was danger both Rhodey and his dad would be in their suits.

“Dad, Friday said you needed me”, Peter then moves his attention to the other figures in the room, four of whom look familiar…too familiar.

Captain America, Black Widow, Falcon and Scarlet Witch.

Peter stares wide-eyed at them, his heart beating faster in his chest at the realisation that the man who nearly killed his dad was here.

Which means that his dad actually _is_ in danger.

Everything he saw from the Siberia footage came slamming back to the front of his mind so hard that it’s like he got hit by a train.

Now wonder his dad’s panicking. _He’s_ panicking.

The Rogues, in return, stare back at Peter with similar looks of surprise and confusion written on their faces, because who is this child? The child who just called Tony; dad.

“Peter, go and wait on our floor” Tony attempts to move Peter out of the door, panic for himself changing to panic for Peter, but he’s sure his son must be using some of his strength and stickiness because he’s not even budging.

“And leave you here, with them?” Peter doesn’t take his eyes off the Rogues, especially Captain ‘Lies-to-your-face-then-stabs-you-in-your-back’ America.

“We’re not going to hurt him” Steve says carefully, unsure of what was going on right now. Looking at his other team member, they all look as clueless as him. Even Natasha.

“Sure you’re not…I mean, it’s not like your going to almost beat my dad to death or anything thing” Peter huffs, “…oh wait, you already did that”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, what did you guys think? Peter finally knows, Tony is now dad, Happy is now uncle and the last of the rouges have returned...A lot has happened in this chapter.
> 
> Next chapter we'll have a proper game of tag, and I think it will be the best yet, as well as the little showdown between Peter and Steve (obviously) 
> 
> Also, just a little something I wanted to run by you guys. It was just something that had popped in my head one day. I was thinking that maybe Lila and Cassie could become a couple? It’s definitely early thinking and wouldn’t happened for ages because they are only 10 and 11 at the moment, but I just suddenly got hit with the idea that they’d make a cute couple in the future. What do you think?
> 
> And while I have you guys thinking; what do you think Peter's bot should be called?
> 
> Thanks for reading, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Feel free to leave a review and a kudos if you did.
> 
> Once again, happy holidays. I hope you had a great day :)


	6. Rogues and Tag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the long wait guys, 2020 has not been very good to me so far:
> 
> January: I got Scarlet Fever right at the start of the month. The medication I’m on for my rheumatoid arthritis (yes, you read correctly. I’m 22 and have arthritis) lowers my immune system. That meant the Scarlet Fever lasted longer than it usually would have. It took nearly a month and 3 courses of antibiotics to finally get rid of it. My dad's uncle also died, so that wasn't great.
> 
> February: My cat unfortunately died. She was the first of my animals that I've had die and it really hit me hard. I was the only one in the family she would let stroke her and she always came to bed with me, so it's been horrible without her. For those of you who have pets, I'm sure you understand just how much they can become a part of your family. My dad also went into hospital at the end of the month and was there for two weeks.
> 
> Now March: My dad had to go back to hospital for a week, but thankfully he seems better now. Thank God! We also have this corona-virus going around which is just horrible. I hope all you guys are well and stay safe.
> 
> So…yeah. 2020 can just fuck off. Sorry for the rant, I just needed to explain why I’ve been gone for so long because you guys deserve to know that I haven’t just disappeared, I've just been dealing with some stuff.

Tony feels ice cold dread wash over him as silence fills the room. This could not be happening. It was like he was in a nightmare.

Peter and the rogues are in the same room…and Peter announced to them, and the UN representatives that are here as well, that he is his son and that Steve almost killed him.

He’s not ashamed of his son, or people knowing about him, but he did not need the UN knowing about his son because those NDA’s are going to be a bitch to get and he definitely did not need the rogues knowing he has a son.

He knows that, because they’ll be living in the compound, there was a chance they’d run into Peter, but most of the time Peter is in his private area, which the rogues do _not_ have access to, so they wouldn’t see him often. The few times they would have seen him, he’d have played it off as the internship.

Can’t do that now.

He also now can’t pretend that Siberia didn’t happen, since Peter blurted that out too.

He chances a look at Rogers, and he sees that his face has paled a couple of shades and he’s looking nervous and guilty.

He flickers his eyes over the other three rogues, and they all look confused. Natasha less so because it’s not in her nature to show her emotions, but he could see a brief look of confusion in her eyes.

Clearly, they don’t know what happened. Which doesn’t surprise him, since Rogers isn’t great at sharing secrets.

Not that he wanted everyone to know, of course, but they’re going to now because they’re going to want to know what Peter is talking about.

Tony sucks in a deep breath and bites back his anxiety because he will _not_ have a panic attack in front of the rogues. Especially not when Peter’s in the same room as them either, because he needs to be in full working shape to protect his son, if needed, in case any other them try anything stupid.

He’s pretty sure they wouldn’t attack a kid…but at the same time, he was pretty sure that Rogers was his friend and wouldn’t hurt him…look how that ended. 

“Peter, our floor. Now” he needs to get his son out of here this room and away from them. He can’t think properly with Peter so close to the people he once considered friends.

He just wants Peter somewhere safe.

“And leave you here with them? With _him_?” Peter narrows his eyes at Steve, pure anger in his eyes.

Steve takes a small step back. There’s a table between him and the boy, but that doesn’t feel like enough space. The amount of anger rolling of the child, and the fact that he apparently knows what unfortunately happened in Siberia, makes him feel uneasy.

Rhodey steps forward and places his hand on Peter’s other shoulder, trying to help Tony push the teen out. “Me and Vision are here, okay? We’re not gonna let anything happen”.

“I’m not leaving” Peter moves away from his dad’s and Rhodey’s hands, and further into the room.

The giant table in the room separates them all. Him, his dad, Rhodey and Vision on one side, the side closest to the door. While the rogues are on the other side, with the UN representatives standing at the top of the table in the middle of both sides.

“You _are_ leaving. Now” Tony grabs Peter’s arm by the crook of his elbow and again attempts to pull his son out of the room.

“No, I’m not”, Peter’s gaze doesn’t waver from the rogues as he easily pulls his arm free. “He’s proved that he doesn’t care about you and that he’s capable of hurting you if he feels like it”.

“Peter-“ Tony starts.

“Peter…I do care about your…dad” Steve breaks his silence, still unsure of what exactly is going on. They had come to here to hear the new terms of the accords and hopefully come home. He regrets everything that’s happened between them all…well almost everything. He doesn’t regret not signing the first accords or helping Bucky…but everything else, he wishes it went differently.

That’s another reason why he came back, to make things right. Especially with Tony.

God…He never knew that Tony had a son, and that makes him feel even worse about how things happened in Siberia, which he didn’t know was possible.

And clearly Tony’s son knows what happened in Siberia, so he can’t blame him for acting like this. He sees a threat to his father and wants to protect him. “I didn’t mean to hurt Tony, I just…I couldn’t let him hurt Bucky”.

“Shut up” Peter’s glare hardens, “you didn’t mean to hurt him? You beat him till he was on the ground and then you left him there. You didn’t know what kind of damage you did to him! You broke his suit so he couldn’t fly home or call for help…you left him stranded and for dead!”

“I never meant for that to happen” Steve swallows, and he _really_ didn’t mean to hurt Tony like that…he didn’t even realise till now just how much he hurt the man. He was just trying to protect Bucky and Tony wasn’t backing down, so he had to use a bit more force. If he’d have known just how hurt Tony was, he _never_ would have left him in the bunker.

Now knowing that Tony apparently has a son just makes it even worse, not only had he’d horrible hurt his friend…but he almost took a parent away from a child.

He’s disgusted with himself.

“He’d just found out the truth about what happened to his parents. He was hurt and upset. After you watch your parents get murdered, you don’t act logically…you don’t even think. You just react” Peter’s hands start curling into a fist as his anger continues to rise. “Dad saw the man that killed his parent’s standing in the same room as him and he acted like any other rational person would have-“.

“Bucky-“ Steve, against his better judgement, tried to interrupt to defend Bucky.

“Was brainwashed? Yes, he was. Technically he was only the brainwashed weapon and it was Hydra that killed them. However, after you’ve just watched a video of your parents being killed, you aren’t thinking about the technicalities and you aren’t thinking rationally. _You’ve just seen your parent’s die_. Your first thoughts aren’t going to be ‘well it wasn’t really him because he was brainwashed’. You’re going to be hurt and angry. You’re going to attack the person that killed them” Peter’s breathing quickens as he works himself up. “If you had told dad the truth about his parent’s when you had found out…then maybe he would have had time to come to terms with what happened. It still would have hurt seeing that video of his parents dying…but it wouldn’t have been a surprise. He would have already had time to process what had happened, meaning that he most likely wouldn’t have attacked your friend”.

The room is frozen in silence.

Rhodey is watching Tony like a hawk, ready to get his friend out of here if it looks like he’s about to have a panic attack. He knows that his friend doesn’t want the rogues to see or know about the attacks, and frankly _he_ doesn’t want the rogues around Tony while he’s in a vulnerable state. They’ve shown how much they care about his brother, or _don’t_ care seeing as none of them ever noticed Tony’s mental illnesses and struggles when they had been living with him.

He’s also keeping an eye on Peter, because his nephew is working himself up and since he’s proven that he’s a lot like his father, Rhodey can tell that a panic attack is close.

Sam and Wanda look at Steve, their eyebrows frowning in confusion at what Peter had said. They can see the destroyed look on Steve’s face. Guilt and remorse pooling in his eyes. That alone tells them that the things Peter had been ranting about…were true. But how could they be? Steve wouldn’t do something like that…

Natasha looks at Steve from the corner of her eye. She knew that he had never told Tony about his parents, which she thought was a mistake, but it wasn’t her place or secret to tell. She also knows that Steve has a single thought whenever Bucky is involved, so she isn’t surprised that he ended up fighting Tony. She is surprised to hear how hurt he left Tony though, even if it was in defence of Bucky.

She flickers her eyes over to the boy who is apparently Tony’s son. He certainly looks like Tony and is obviously protective of him…she’s just very curious as to when this happened because there is no way she would have missed this.

The UN representatives are just wondering how they picked the short straw, because this has just gone from complicated to bomb sight.

“I’m sorry” Steve says, his voice sounding rough and his face visibly reflecting the pain and regret he felt.

Peter shakes his head, his anger still burning and yet he felt tear start to form in his eyes. “It’s all your fault! If you had acted like the friend you were supposed to be to my dad and told him the truth…none of this would have happened…but you just don’t stop to think about the consequences of your actions!”

Tony comes out of his shock and knows that he really needs to get Peter out of the room. His son was becoming distressed and his breathing was starting to become erratic. He needed to get him to calm down before he sent himself into a panic attack…or before he decided that the best course of action was to attack Rogers.

As much as he’d love to see Rogers get knocked on his ass, it would defiantly give away Peter’s web-swinging alter-ego…and that was _not_ something they could deal with right now. Not with everything else that Peter’s already spilled out to everyone.

He just wants to get his son and leave. Rhodey and Vision can handle finishing up the meeting because he can’t face any of them, not when he knows that they all have questions about what Peter just said.

Tony steps closer to his son and grabs his arm again. He leans closer to Peter’s face and lowers his voice, “Peter, we talk about this… the accords, Germany…Siberia…it wasn’t just on Rogers; it was on me too…it was on everyone. We all played a part in what happened and what happened was a mess”.

“But you didn’t almost kill someone” Peter’s voice is hard and his wet glare on Steve is unwavering. “How could you actually let them back here?”

“You know why” Tony says softly but firmly.

Peter finally turns his gaze from Steve to his dad. His glare turning into a look of fear, tears starting to make their way down his face, “he hurt you”.

“I know, and I hurt him back”.

“He was able to walk away…you almost didn’t” Peter chokes out.

“But I did” Tony pulls on Peter’s arm gently, “come on”.

“I’m not leaving you with him” Peter shakes his head adamantly.

“I’m coming too. Rhodey and Vision can finish things here”.

Peter nods his head but turns to look back at Steve. His icy glare back on his face, “you _ever_ hurt my dad again, and it will be the last time you do”.

“Come on Pete” Tony says firmly, and this time Peter let’s Tony drag him out of the room.

Once again, the room falls into silence as the father and son leave. No one sure of what to do or say.

Rhodey crosses his arms over his chest as he re-takes his seat. Now that his friend is out of the room, he can relax a little bit. He didn’t want Tony to be here in the first place because he knew the affect it would have on him, being in a room with Rogers and Romanoff.

Tony is one stubborn bastard and would not just let him and Vision handle it. He was kind of glad for Peter’s interruption…even if he did let several cat’s out of their bags.

“Okay…I’m just gonna…” Sam breaks the silence of the room, eyes flickering between Steve and the door that Tony and Peter just left threw. The shock wearing off of him, “I’m gonna ask what everyone else is thinking…What the hell?”

“That is a good question” Rhodey leans back in his chair as he looks at Steve.

Steve closes his eyes in shame and lowers head. He hadn’t told the others the full story of what happened in Siberia. He should have. He knows he should have…but he was too…disappointed in himself and about what happened to ever actually tell them. All he had ever said about Siberia was that when he and Bucky had gotten to Siberia, Zemo had already killed the other soldiers and T’Challa had taken him into custody. Steve suspected Natasha knew that more had happened, because she’s Natasha, but she’s never asked or confronted him.

“Steve?” Wanda frowns.

“When me and Bucky were in Siberia looking for the other soldiers…Tony showed up. He found proof that Bucky wasn’t responsible for the bombing and came to help us with the soldiers, without Ross’s knowledge”, Steve explains, looking up at his team. “When we found Zemo in the room with the dead soldiers…he had this computer and on it he played a tape from one of the Winter Soldiers missions”, Steve swallows hard. “It was of the night Tony’s parents died”.

“Wait, hold up” Sam raises a hand to stop Steve, “are you saying that your buddy _did_ kill Tony’s parents?”

“It wasn’t Bucky…but it was the Winter Soldier. The tape showed the Soldier killing Howard and his wife…and Tony watched it. He was upset-”.

“Understatement” Rhodey mutters rolling his eyes.

“He attacked Bucky, wanted to kill him…I…I was just trying to stop him…I _never_ meant to hurt Tony the way I did. I just…” Steve trails off because he has no argument. He messed up.

Wanda quietly takes a seat, digesting everything. She’s never been a fan of Stark and will never be friends with him…but she can understand the loss of family.

The UN representatives still look like they would like to be somewhere else.

“Man…” Sam shakes his head and bites his lip, “so your brainwashed buddy killed his parents and then you beat him up? You should have told us this sooner Steve. We’re supposed to be a team…aren’t we?”

“I know I should have…I just…I was worried that if you knew that you’d want to leave and I wanted to keep what little bit of a team we had left, together. I knew what I did to Tony wasn’t right…he’s my friend and he was angry…but I just…I couldn’t let him hurt Bucky either” Steve says, the shame and the guilt thick in his voice. “I know I messed up and I don’t have any good excuses…I wish I could take it all back”.

“I don’t even know what to think right now” Sam mutters, pulling back a chair and falling into it.

“The kid said something about ‘if you had told him when you had found out’. What did he mean?” Wanda asks.

“After we found out that Hydra still existed, and we uploaded their stuff onto the internet…we found the written reports of Howard and his wife’s deaths…I didn’t know whether or not to tell Tony…I didn’t know at the time if it would do more harm than good” Steve says.

“I wiped the files on Hydra’s involvement in the Starks deaths off the internet after making a copy for Steve to give to Tony if he decided to tell him” Natasha adds.

Natasha regrets a lot of what happened. All she had wanted to do when she join SHEILD was to finally do some good, to wash some of the blood from her hands, which she thought she was doing when she became an Avenger… She also thought she was finally part of a family, even if it was a bit dysfunctional.

And then it all fell apart.

She wishes she that she didn’t go behind Tony’s back by letting Steve go, breaking Tony’s trust…but she thought she was doing the right thing for the future of team. She thought that if Steve got arrested by Tony then things would end badly.

Things ended badly any way.

And now here they are…attempting to fix something that’s going to be very hard to put back together again.

“You knew too?” Rhodey looks at Natasha. Actually, why is he even surprised?

Natasha nods.

“In the end I chose not to because I didn’t want to hurt him” Steve looks at the ground.

“And yet you ended up hurting Mr Stark more than if you had told him in the first place” Vision states, not intending to be harsh but his bluntness of the fact makes Steve flinch.

“I know that now, and I wish I’d made a different call” Steve looks at Vision, his face full of honesty.

“You’re not the only one” Rhodey mumbles.

“I really am sorry about what happened and how it happened” Steve looks at Rhodey with pleading eyes.

“It’s not me you have to apologise to…however, I’d give it some time” Rhodey says. He’s not sure whether Tony would ever forgive what happened, and frankly he’s not sure whether his friend should or shouldn’t. Rhodey may be a bit biased but he isn’t single minded, he knows that it wasn’t all Rogers fault. Tony had messed up too, they all had…but seeing as it was his friend who got beaten and left for practically dead, he’s pretty sure no one’s going to blame him for holding a grudge against Rogers. “Good luck getting past his bodyguard though. Peter’s not going to let you anywhere near him, not that you can blame him”.

“Right, and Peter is?” Natasha raises an eyebrow.

“I thought that was made pretty clear” Rhodey stares back.

“Last time I checked; Tony didn’t have any children” Natasha digs.

“Last time you checked, Tony didn’t _know_ he had any children” Rhodey shoots back, “He only found out about Peter at the start of the year and trust me when I say, that if you want to get on Tony’s good side, do not go interrogating Peter. You’ll find your pardons gone quicker than you can blink, and _I’ll_ be personally blasting you out of the compound”, Rhodey fixes all of the rogues with a look, finishing his stare on Natasha. “Peter is off limits”.

Natasha nods her head. In the past she would have paid no attention to that warning and the spy in her still wants to go and find out as much about this boy as possible…but she won’t. She has a lot of making up to do and going behind Tony’s back again is not something she wants to do. She knows that Tony will never trust her like he once did, and that’s on her, but she still has to try.

“Uh…maybe we could…um, get back to the meeting”, one of the UN representatives stutters out.

“Of course, where were we?” Rhodey asks.

“We were explaining the conditions of the pardons and the accords” Vision floats into a chair next to Rhodey, while Natasha and Steve slowly sit back down.

“Okay, well first, one of your conditions for your pardons is that you have to sign the accords and before you-“ Rhodey looks pointedly at Steve, “-start going off on some righteous freedom speech, the accords are not yet finalized, these are just drafts that you’re signing as a sign of good faith” Rhodey pauses for Steve’s outburst, but the man is keeping quiet…though he doesn’t look to pleased. “If you had listened the first time the accords were presented, you would have known that they were still a work in progress, and you could have been a part of making them”, Rhodey can’t help but dig at Rogers a little. Sue him, he hurt his best friend. “Tony has been working with the UN on the final draft of the accords. He’s been trying to find a fair middle ground between what the UN wants and what we want. He’s made them see that having the accords how they were would do more harm than good because it would only make the people they want to sign it feel threatened and like they have no freedom at all. He’s made a lot of changes and progress, and hopefully the finalized Sokovia Accords will be finished soon”.

“What kind of changes?” Steve asks, he knew that a condition of their pardons would be the accords. He just hopes that they have changed.

“Well for one, you only sign the accords if you’re a part of the Avengers or another group of enhance or powered people. If you’re enhanced, or whatever, and you don’t want to sign and you want to go live a normal life, then you won’t be forced to sign. If, however, you commit a crime, you will then of course be registered so that you can be tracked and monitored. You also have to be over the age of 18 to sign the accords and if you have a secret identity, you do not have to reveal it as long as someone else, who has signed the accords, vouches for you” Rhodey explains. Letting them know how much the accords have changed and just what Tony’s done for them is a good incentive and guilt trip. “Another change is that while we won’t be working _under_ the government, we’ll be working _with_ the government. We’ll have a liaison officer as well as an agreed upon set of guidelines for when we do or do not get involved. Avengers will no longer deal with threats that normal task forces can handle, such as terrorists, unless we are given permission or asked for help. We let the normal people handle the normal threats that they are trained for. The Avengers are around to deal with enhanced people, weapons or aliens”.

Sam let’s out huff of air, “Starks been working on this, even after what happened in Germany?”

Rhodey nods, “there’s other things he’s managed to get tweaked, but you can read it through once the accords are finalized”.

“What are our other conditions for our pardons?” Wanda asks.

“Obviously, you’ll be staying in the compound so that you can be monitored to make sure you’re not doing anything you shouldn’t. For the foreseeable future, you’ll only be allowed to leave the compound when there is an assemble. After a period of time, depending on good behaviour, you’ll then be able to come and go from the compound” Rhodey explains more of the conditions. He can tell that Rogers isn’t completely pleased but is keeping his mouth shut. “Your arrival back in the country and your pardons are being kept quiet for now while everything gets finalised and settled. It’ll probably be a month or two before we announce that you’ve returned, just so we can plan out how we release the information. You know info control, so we can make it look positive”.

“How did Tony get the committee to agree to these changes and to the pardons” Natasha interrupts.

“He simply laid it all out to them”, while Tony was the one who went to all the meetings over the accords, Rhodey did also go to some of them as well. So, he saw first-hand how Tony persuaded the council to listen to his ideas. “He explained that if an invasion were to happen again, the world would lose because our armies and weapons wouldn’t last long against the advance technology that other worlds have. Earth needs enhanced people and such to be able to stand a chance in a fight for the world, which is why they eventually but begrudgingly agreed to your pardons” Rhodey explains what Tony had told the UN. “It’s also why they’ve agree to some of the changes within the accords. Just like you, other enhanced people aren’t going to sign something that almost seems like it’s about tagging and tracking them. They won’t want to register themselves if it’s just so they can be watched because they are different. It invades their rights as humans. So, Tony told them that they have to meet in the middle of control and no control, for the safety of the Earth”.

“And it worked?” Sam asks, slightly sceptically.

“Well, you’re here getting your pardons aren’t you” Rhodey points out and Sam concedes.

“You said that we’d be have a liaison officer. It’s not Ross, is it?” Steve asks warily. He can accept the accords and the conditions, but there is no way that he’ll work with Ross. That man built an underwater prison for enhanced people to be lock away and forgotten about.

Rhodey snorts, “hell no. Ross tried to get the council to appoint him as the liaison, but Tony made sure that didn’t happen. He told the council point blank that the Avengers won’t work with him”.

“Bet Ross was happy about that” Sam smirks.

“He couldn’t show that he was pissed off in front of the UN, but you could see he was fuming…it was very satisfying”.

“If we could get back on track”, one of the UN representatives interrupts, pulling out the copies of the accords to be signed.

“Right, once you sign these, you’ll be shown to your rooms. You’re all on the same floor in the same wing. For now, you’ll only have access to your floor, the communal kitchen and living room, the med-bay, the gym, the training room and the outside area. You’ll only be allowed access to other areas if given permission by someone with full clearance” Rhodey informs the rogues as the accords gets passed to them.

“And someone with full clearance would be?” Natasha asks while she flicks through her copy of the accords.

“Tony, Pepper, myself or Peter”.

“You said that we aren’t allowed to leave the compound for some time” Wanda says, “so even though we have been pardoned…we’re still prisoners”.

“You should be thankful that you got your pardons and that your ‘prison’ is the compound. There are a lot of worse places that you could have been stuck in” Rhodey points out with a raised eyebrow and Wanda shuts her mouth, “and like I said, it’s only for now. You’ll gain your freedom back once you start earning back the trust that you lost”.

“Mr Barton and Mr Lang have already started gaining trust with the good behaviour they have been showing during their house arrests” Vision states, “they will, in fact, be coming to the compound tomorrow”.

Sam and Wanda sign their copies of the accord, followed by Natasha. Steve stares at the accords hard for a moment before sighing and reluctantly signing also.

“Thank you for your cooperation Mr Rogers, Mr Wilson, Mrs Romanoff and Miss Maximoff” the UN representative collects the accords, “thank you for your help Mr Rhodes and Mr…Vision”.

“I’m just glad that a solution could be found” Rhodey stands and shakes their hands, “F.R.I.D.A.Y will show you out”.

The UN representatives collect their things and leave the room.

Rhodey turns back to the rogues, “Vision will show you to your floor so you can get settled”, Rhodey starts walking out of the room as the rogues stand up from their chairs. “By the way. If any of you hurt Tony again, they won’t find your bodies”, Rhodey doesn’t bother to turn around as he threatens them, he just continues out the door.

Steve knew that things would be hard…after everything thing that’s happened between them. He wasn’t stupid, he knew that everything wouldn’t go back to the way it was before. Things are different now. Trust was broken.

He just hopes that eventually things could at least be better than they are now.

Although it seems like that’s all it’s going to be. Hope.

* * *

After his dad gets him out of the room, the rest of Friday goes in a hazy blink for Peter. He vaguely remembers his dad taking them to their floor and sitting him down on the couch.

They didn’t speak much, which was fine with Peter because he didn’t know exactly what to say. He had accidently blurted out that he was his son and the stuff about Siberia, all of which is supposed to be a secret. He was worried that his dad would be mad at him, so he was glad when they just sat together on the couch in mostly silence. Peter snuggled into dad’s chest so he could hear the firm beating of his father’s heart.

He remembers Rhodey appearing at some point, but all he was focused on was his father’s heart beating, proving he was alive.

Talking could be done later, now was a time for cuddling.

* * *

Peter doesn’t sleep well that night, spending most of it tossing and turning. His mind focused on the rogues only a few floors away.

Tony and Pepper share a look with each other over breakfast when they see they the dark circles under Peter’s eyes at breakfast.

“It’s going to be a few hours before Clint and Scott get here, so why don’t we go to the lab and work on your bot some more? I have some bits and pieces to finish up too” Tony asks once Peter finishes shovelling the last piece of his breakfast into his mouth.

Peter shrugs, “sure”.

The boys make their way to the lab while Pepper leaves for work. Peter’s bot was almost finished. Its coding was almost complete, and once that’s done, he can finish putting his bot together.

His bot, once complete, will be about half the size of a soccer ball. Not very big, but that wasn’t what Peter wanted. He wanted a small bot that would be easy to for him to take with him if needed and wouldn’t get in the way.

As much as he loves his brobots…you have to take cover sometimes when they start swinging their arms around.

Peter and Tony sit side by side working on their own projects for the next couple of hours, with Tony interjecting occasionally to help Peter with his bot. 

“Boss, Mr Hogan has arrived with Potato” F.R.I.D.A.Y interrupts.

Peter blinks, “…did Friday just say…potato?”

“Ah, yes. Send him up here Fri and tell Hap he can go back to SI” Tony says, picking up a rag to wipe his hands.

“You ordered a potato?” Peter frowns in confusion.

“Yes…well, no. Not an actual potato, but you should absolutely call him that”. Peter continues to stare at Tony like he’s grown a second head, “okay…after yesterday, I figured you could do with something to take your mind off of everything. Now I know that Cooper and the other small people are going to be here soon…but I made a call to an old friend of mine. He helped me out a few years ago-“.

“Sell me short why don’t you mechanic” a boy huffs, walking into the lab, startling Peter. “I more than helped you. I totally _saved_ you a few years ago, and I’m insulted it took you this long to invite me out to visit by the way”.

“You’re potato?” Peter squints at the new arrival, the boy looks to be around his age. He has light brown hair that, like his own, is a mop on his head. Though Peter’s is more controlled due to the fact he uses gel to help tame his curls.

“Seriously? That’s what you’re making Friday call me?” the boy glares at Tony.

“Yes” Tony nods with a satisfied grin.

“Now I’m insulted and offended” the boy huffs “also…why didn’t you tell me sooner that you have a kid now?”

“It’s not public knowledge” Tony shrugs.

“I’m not the public, I’m the kid that saved your life-“.

“_Helped_”.

“-and we’re supposed to be connected”.

“Which is why I’ve told you now” Tony says in a tone that implies it was obviously, but the boy only glares.

“Um…h-hello?” Peter stutters, interrupting his father and the stranger.

…Does his dad have a habit of picking up stray children? Is he secretly Bruce Wayne?

“Right!” Tony claps his hand together, “Peter, meet Harley. He _helped_ me out of few years ago during the Mandarin thing and we kept in touch because he’s pretty smart and an okay kid”.

“Wow…I’m so touched by those thoughtfully and loving words. You really warmed my heart” Harley clutches his chest, holding onto his heart. “The oh so great Ironman thinks I’m ‘okay’. My life is complete”.

“He’s just as much of a little shit as you are Pete, so you’ll get along fine” Tony glares at Harley while the boy just grins at him. “Harley, meet my recently discovered son, Peter… Well not that recently discovered, it’s been six months now”.

“Hi” Harley grins at Peter, “I think it should also be said that I shot your dad with my potato gun. That’s why he apparently has Friday call me Potato”.

“You didn’t shoot me with a potato gun, you missed” Tony scoffs.

“I almost shot you” Harley insists, and Tony just rolls his eyes.

“Oh my God” Peter groans, his face falling into his hands.

“What?” both Harley and Tony ask.

Peter raises his head and he stares at Tony, “you’ve set up another playdate”.

“No, no, no-“ Tony shakes his head.

“Holy shit…you have” Harley’s eyes widen, “dude! I’m 16”.

“And I’m almost 16” Peter huffs.

“Hold on! I never set up the first playdate! That was Scott and Clint” Tony defends himself, “and this isn’t a playdate. I just thought it would be nice for you two to meet. Sorry for trying to be thoughtful”.

“You’ve become one of those embarrassing dad’s” Harley snorts.

“You have no idea how embarrassing he can be” Peter says with a look in his eyes that says that he’s seen some shit.

Harley grins like an evil genius, “tell me every bit of dirt you have on him, and we’re going to be the best of friends”.

“I’ve made mistake” Tony mutters, the realisation hitting him.

“I can do better then tell you, I have videos” Peter grins pulling out his phone.

“I’ve made a _very_ big mistake”.

“Robin Hood and Stuart Little have arrived, along with the small agents” F.R.I.D.A.Y announces.

“Oh, thank God!” Tony cries in relief, “send them to the communal living room, we’ll meet them there”.

“Don’t think this saves you mechanic” Harley says, “I’m here the whole weekend, remember?”

“Devil child” Tony glares at Harley as Peter sniggers behind him.

“You know what…I’m feeling a lot better now. Thanks dad” Peter smiles, not very innocently, at Tony.

“I’ll ground you” Tony points at Peter.

“Pepper will un-ground me” Peter shrugs.

“No one here respects me or listens to me” Tony huffs in defeat, “come on. Let’s go meet Tiny Tim and Feathers”.

“Tiny Tim and Feathers?” Harley frowns in confusion as he and Peter follow Tony out of the lab.

“Antman and Hawkeye” Peter clarifies.

“I thought they were in hiding with the other ex-avengers?”

“To the public, yes they are in hiding” Tony says.

“And to the not public?” Harley asks, an eyebrow raised.

“Hawkeye and Antman have been out of hiding and on house arrest for about five months now” Tony explains, “though their house arrest is officially over today”.

“Really?” Peter asks.

“Since the others have gotten their pardons, it’s only fair that Clint and Scott get theirs too” Tony explains, “Especially since they’ve done more to earn them”.

“The others?” Harley asks.

“The other…ex-avengers arrived back here yesterday and as you can probably guess that is also _not_ public knowledge” Tony gives Harley a pointed look.

“Got it” Harley mimes zipping his mouth, “I know nothing”.

“…Jon Snow” Peter adds.

“Who?” Tony frowns while Harley snorts.

“We are definitely going to be good friends” Harley grins.

“A ginormous mistake” Tony mutters.

The elevator automatically takes them to the communal living room, which currently only has the people Tony wants to see, in it. Tony had told F.R.I.D.A.Y to tell the rogues to stay away from the communal areas until he gives the ‘okay’, because he wants to minimise the time Peter is around them. He’s surprised that they actually listened.

“Hey guys” Tony greets the Barton’s and the Lang’s, “ready to get those stylish bracelets off?”

“Hell yeah” Scott cheers, pumping a fist in the air with Cassie giggling next to him.

Clint frowns when he catches sight of Harley, “who’s the kid?”

“The kid is Harley” Tony introduces, “say hello Harley”.

“Hello Harley” Harley gives a cheeky grin while Peter, Cooper, Lila, Cassie and Scott all snigger.

Tony closes his eyes and sighs.

“And Harley is?” Clint asks, his voice taking a suspicious tone.

“Awesome. That’s what Harley is” Harley winks and Tony physically resists face palming.

“Please stop” Tony begs before turning back to Scott and Clint, “Harley is a kid I know, and I figured he could, you know, meet and greet the other kids”.

Clint gives Tony a hard stare, “what happened to the children being a secret for their safety?”

“I’m a great secret keeper” Harley defends both Tony and himself, “I never told anyone, not even my mum, that Ironman had stayed in our garage. Mum only found out about it afterwards because Richy-Rich here redecorated the garage”.

Tony nods, “You can trust Harley…I mean, do you think I would tell him about Peter if I didn’t _know_ that I could trust him”.

“A lot of trust is built when you save someone’s ass” Harley adds.

“Helped out”.

“Saved”.

“Helped, Potato”.

“Saved, Old Man”.

“He isn’t another illegitimate child of yours, is he?” Clint’s mouth twitches in amusement, “because I’m hearing a resemblance”.

“Shut up Birdbrain” Tony rolls his eyes.

“You’ll claim Peter, but you won’t claim me…I always knew you loved him more” Harley says dramatically while Peter sniggers next to him.

“Wait, you do have another kid?” Scott stares wide eyed at Harley.

“No. I only have the one child and that’s Peter” Tony rolls his eyes at Scott’s lack of a brain.

“Dad’s like Batman” Peter explains, “I’m Damian Wayne, the biological son, and Harley is Dick Grayson, the adopted son”.

“I feel like I’m more Jason Todd, but yeah…Tony is definitely Bruce Wayne…just, you know, older” Harley agrees with a smirk on his face, “a _lot_ older”.

“I hate you” Tony glares and Harley only grins wider.

“Jason? Come on, Dick is way better. He’s the original” Cooper slides into the conversation, happy to finally be able to get involved and potentially have another friend. Which takes his grand total of friends up to two…

“He’s not bad, but Jason is better. His way of doing things is a lot more effective than Batman’s” Harley states.

“I’ll agree that killing the bad guys is more effective…but Jason is basically a thug. Plus, if it wasn’t for Dick, there wouldn’t be any Robins in the first place”.

“I wouldn’t say Jason is a thug, it’s not like he beats people up for fun or for their money” Peter says before throwing in his opinion, “what about Tim? He was the only one who never gave up on Batman when everyone else thought he was dead. Plus, he got Ra’s approval and not many people get that”.

Cooper snorts, “yeah because having the approval of a crazy old man is what everyone wants”.

“Now Cooper has another person to nerd with over comics” Lila huffs interrupting the boys, her eyes rolling in amusement, “come on Cassie”, the two girls run off together.

“Are we cool?” Tony asks Clint. He messed up a little… He should have talked to Clint and Scott about Harley first. He wouldn’t appreciate it if they brought a random person with them to meet Peter.

Clint watches Cooper have a debate with Peter and Harley about which Robin is the best. It’s not something he gets to see, his son having fun with others his age. Thanks to his job, his wife and children have had to give up a lot. While he doesn’t regret his part in SHIELD or the Avengers, he does wish his family could have had a bit more of a normal life.

The last few months have been good. Not just because he’s back with his family, but because there is a bit of normalcy. Cooper and Lila both have a friend, who they text and see, and even he has friends he can talk about his kids with.

It’s nice, having a bit of normal.

Clint is happy that Cooper has Peter as a friend…and if there’s a chance he could have another friend, he can’t get in the way of that. His son has been so cheerful recently now that he’s got someone _outside_ of the family to talk to…it’s what all parents want, for their children to be happy.

“Yeah, we’re cool” Clint agrees, a smile forming on his lips as he watches the teen boys.

“You’d like my friend Ned, he’s a Dick Grayson fan too” Peter says.

“Then he clearly has a brain” Cooper smirks.

Harley groans, “Dick is basically a pretty boy who can do cool tricks, he is not the best Robin”.

“You need your head examining, he is definitely the best” Cooper protests.

“Yeah…maybe, but let’s not forget that Tim figured out who Batman was when he was like nine” Peter argues.

Scott jumps into the conversation, agreeing with Cooper, “Dick is the original! You can’t get better then the OG”.

Tony and Clint take a couple of steps back to distance themselves from Scott.

“He’s a giant child” Tony sighs, ignoring the fact that he and Clint are also basically children.

“Yeah, but he’s our giant child” Clint states.

Tony snorts in response before nodding in agreement, “I suppose. But if we ever go out in public, I’m pretending that I don’t know him”.

“Me too” Clint chuckles, a soft look on his face as he watches his son. Cooper just looks so happy and carefree…which is probably what prompts Clint to ask, “have you met Peter’s friend; Ned was it?”

“Yeah, he’s a bit like Peter. Awkward at every turn but a genius. The kid managed to hack into some of my stuff” Tony says, his voice showing that he’s still impressed at Ned’s hacking.

“Seriously?”

“Yep. I was more impressed then pissed, though I’ve warned him not to do it again because I won’t be so forgiving the next time”.

“So, does that mean that he knows that you’re Peter’s dad?”

“Yeah, him and his other friend Michelle know about me being Peter’s dad. Michelle is terrifying, she’s basically a mini Pepper. She actually goes by MJ…but she doesn’t let me call her that. Apparently only her friends are allowed to call her MJ”.

“So…you’d say that Ned and Michelle are trustworthy then? You trust them knowing about you and Peter?” Clint presses.

“Yes, I do. Peter has two good friends who have his back” Tony says firmly before looking at Clint with a slight frown, “why?”

“Could they be trusted to know about Cooper and Lila?”

Tony stares at Clint in shock, “who are you and what have you done with Birdbrain?”

“I’ve never enjoyed keeping Cooper and Lila away from everyone. It’s for their safety…but I’ve always felt guilty that they couldn’t have a normal childhood, with school and friends” Clint sighs, “It’s why, as you know, I brought them here to meet Peter and Cassie, so they would finally have a friend”.

“And you want them to have more friends” Tony concludes.

“If possible”.

“I can promise you that you can trust Ned and Michelle. They hold a lot of Peter’s secrets”.

Clint snorts, “how many secrets does a 15 year old have? Other than having a billionaire for a father”.

Tony chuckles, “you’d be surprised. But anyway, if you want Cooper to have some good friends, Ned and Michelle are a good choice”.

Clint tosses the idea around in his head. There is the worry that, even if Tony vouches for them, can he actually trust two teenagers with this secret? Plus, it wouldn’t just be the secret about his kids, it would also be the secret about him and Scott being back, which isn’t public knowledge yet.

But also, it would be so good for Cooper and Lila to have others to talk to. He also knows that Tony wouldn’t let Peter tell his friends if he thought it would put Peter’s new identity as his son at risk. Tony wouldn’t endanger his son. So as unbelievable as it is, these teenagers must be trustworthy.

“Pete” Clint calls out interrupting the boys and Scott’s debate, “come here for a second”.

“Yes Mr Hawkeye?” Peter asks walking over to them.

Clint rolls his eyes, “how many times do I have to tell you to just call me Clint”.

“It took me being his dad to get him to stop calling me Mr Stark, don’t get your hopes up” Tony says with a fond smile on his face.

“Well, I could always be Uncle Clint” Clint suggests.

“I suppose every family does need that weird uncle that visit at Christmas” Tony smirks fully while Peter ducks his head to hide his.

“Dick” Clint playfully glares at Tony, “right Pete, your dad says that your friends know about him being your dad”.

It takes Peter a second to adjust to the strange change in conversation, “…umm yeah?”

“And they haven’t told anyone about it, they’ve kept it secret?”

“They wouldn’t tell anyone. Ned may be a bit…excitable, but he’d never go behind my back and MJ…is MJ”.

“So, they’re trustworthy?”

Peter nods, “I’d trust them with my life”.

“Okay…Look, you can call your friends and invite them here to hang out”.

Peter frowns in confusion, “what about Cooper, Lila and Cassie. No one’s supposed to know about them”.

“No one’s supposed to know about you, but your friends do, and they’ve kept it a secret. If you trust them and Tony trusts them, then they can know. But…You _have to_ stress to them that this information _can not_ get out. No one can know about us or our kids” Clint stresses the last part, making sure Peter understands.

Peter nods firmly, “they won’t tell a soul. They’re good at keeping secrets, better than me”.

“Okay then, but just let them know that if they tell anyone…they won’t have bodies left to find”.

Peter eyes widen as he swallows, “got it”.

“He’s joking” Tony jumps in.

“Maybe” Clint shrugs.

“Just go and call Ted and your scary girlfriend and tell them I’m sending someone to pick them up. It won’t be Happy as he’s at SI right now” Tony interrupts again before Clint could scare his son some more.

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Peter turns red and scurries off back to Harley, Cooper and Scott.

“Not yet” Tony calls after Peter before turning back to Clint, “he’s got a huge crush on her but is too scared to do anything at the moment. Chances are, if anything’s going to happen, it’s going to be Michelle who makes the first move”.

“Ahh, puppy love”.

“Yep, it’s fun to see how red you can make his face go when you call Michelle his girlfriend” Tony chuckles before he claps his hands together, “right let’s get these bracelet’s off then you can go see the others”.

“Sounds like a plan” Clint nods in agreement.

“Let’s go Tinkerbell. We’ve got to go down to my lab, then we’re heading to the rogue’s floor. Fri, be a dear and let them know Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb are here and we’ll be with them in about ten minutes. Tell Rhodey and Vision to head there too” Tony leads the men towards the elevator while Peter shoots Tony a worried look. Tony smiles at his son to reassure him as the elevator doors close.

Peter let’s in a deep breath to keep himself calm. Nothing is going to happen to his dad. His dad is going to be fine. Uncle Rhodey and Vision will be there with him, as well as Scott and Clint.

He tunes back into his conversation with Harley and Cooper, “you’re going to love Ned. MJ…can be intimidating, but she’s cool”.

* * *

While Scott and Clint almost immediately step off of the elevator when they get to the rogue’s floor, it takes Tony a moment to compose himself and he’s glad that Rhodey is the first person he sees once he walks into the room.

The atmosphere is slightly tense, and for once, Tony is sure it isn’t because of him. Sam and Wanda are sat on the opposite side of the room to Romanoff and Rogers. Romanoff is sat with her usual look of indifference next to a remorseful looking Rogers, while Sam and Wanda look a little betrayed.

Boy, does he know that feeling.

It’s then that he remembers Rhodey telling him that Sam, Wanda and maybe Natasha, but who knows with her, clearly didn’t know about Siberia and that Rogers had to briefly fill them in after he and Peter had left yesterday.

They must have had a more detailed talk after the meeting once they got settled on their floor.

It’s probably why they all, with of course the exception of Natasha, look tired. They were either getting used to the time difference…or they were up all night talking or arguing about how Roger’s doesn’t know how to share secrets. If it’s the latter option, then it means that possibly Sam and Wanda are upset about what Steve did to him.

Tony’s not sure how to feel about that. It’s mostly Rogers and Romanoff he feels hurt and betrayed by; he doesn’t really know Sam so he’s not angry at the man. His opinion on him is similar to the one he had on Clint and Scott a few months ago.

Wanda is a bit more complicated because of her messing with his head during the Ultron disaster and because Tony is fully aware that she doesn’t like him. He does feel for her, because he knows how hard it can be to lose your parents tragically…but that doesn’t give her the okay to fuck with his head.

He’s more annoyed at Wanda then he is of Sam, because all he had been trying to do when he had ‘grounded’ her, was keep her safe. People we’re scared of her and when people are scared, they either run away…or attack. The fight or flight instinct.

He just wanted to keep her away until things blew over, but of course, she hadn’t seen it that way and just saw him as the bad guy…again.

However, he’s definitely not as annoyed or hurt by Wanda as he is by Romanoff and Rogers. Those two are the ones who hurt him the most on both an emotional and physically level.

If it wasn’t for the safety of the Earth, they would not be here right now because he really can’t see how things between them can ever get fixed.

Rhodey is literally the best friend in the world for being here for him right now.

“Uh, hey guys” Scott awkwardly waves to the full room. “It’s me…Scott”.

“We remember you Tic Tac” Sam’s mouth slightly twitching to give a small smirk.

“Hey guys” Clint greets the rogues, “Nat”, he grins as he hugs her. “I’ve missed you. The gremlins have missed their auntie Nat too”.

“I’ve missed them…and I guess you too” Natasha smirks as Clint gives her a fake wounded look.

“I’m feeling the love” Clint says sarcastically before moving to greet Steve and then Sam, “it’s good to see you guys too”.

“Back at you” Sam smiles.

“We’ve missed you too” Wanda grins, hugging Clint.

“At least some people love me” Clint pokes his tongue out at Natasha, who responds with an eyeroll. “Oh, by the way, Cooper and Lila are here”.

“Really?” Natasha’s eye light up.

“Cooper and Lila didn’t want to miss the chance of seeing their aunt. Laura and Nate would have been here too, but Nate got sick yesterday”.

“My poor mini me”.

“He was already looking better this morning before we left, so he should be all better by the time we get back tomorrow”.

“Good” Natasha smiles, “where are Cooper and Lila?”

“Umm” Clint freezes, not wanting to tell her and the others about Peter in case Tony hasn’t told them yet.

“Cooper’s hanging out with Peter and I believe Lila is running around with Cassie” Tony says for Clint and he can see all the rogues perk up like dogs getting a treat. They are clearly intrigued to hear about Peter.

“Yeah, turns out Peter and Cooper get on like a house on fire, and so do Cassie and Lila” Clint grins, “anyway, they are around so you’ll be seeing them at some point”.

“Can’t wait” Natasha says honestly.

“So, how’s it feel to be back? I know I was glad to have the comfort of my bed again” Scott asks and the question causes the room to go silent and even Scott can tell something had happened, “…uh…”.

Steve clears his throat and attempts to smile but it doesn’t reach his eyes, “it’s great. The place hasn’t changed much”.

“Yes, I certainly missed these beds. Much comfier” Wanda nods, looking a bit awkward.

“Okay…we’re clearly missing something” Clint raises an eyebrow at the group.

“You could say that” Sam huffs.

“And what have we missed?” Clint asks.

“It’s doesn’t matter” Tony interrupts.

“Yes, it does” Steve says. It’s only right that he tells Clint and Scott about Siberia. He still feels disgusted with himself and wants to do whatever he can to set things right. “They should know about what happened too. About what…what I did”.

“Well you can set your demons free later when I’m not around” Tony says firmly. “I was around during it, I have no wish to go over it again”.

When it looks like Steve is about to open his mouth Rhodey cuts in, “drop it for now” Rhodey gives Steve a pointed look and Steve backs down.

“Okay, seriously…what the hell?” Clint stares at everyone.

“Later Clint” Natasha shakes her head.

“Fine, but I’m not happy”.

“You won’t be happy about what you hear either” Sam mumbles, and Wanda hums in agreement.

The room falls into another tense silence, with no one knowing what to say.

Well, the rouges know what they want to say. They want to apologies to Tony for the different things they had done to hurt him…but know that now clearly isn’t the time to do it.

“…This is a great reunion” Scott tries to break the suffocating atmosphere.

The atmosphere does break, but not because of Scott. It breaks because of Peter bursting out of the elevator and running straight into Tony.

“Sorry to interrupt…” Peter looks the rogues up and down, “well, not that sorry”.

“Peter-“ Tony goes to reprimand his son. Why does his child feel the need to go exactly where he doesn’t want him to? Like on the rogues floor?

“I have something important to tell you” Peter interrupts.

“What?”

Peter stares at his father as he places a hand on Tony’s arm, “…tag”.

Tony’s eyes go wide, “you little shit!”

“Boss is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s amused voice rings out.

“Nope” Clint quickly backs away from Tony.

“I’m not losing for the third time in a row!” Scott yells as he runs out of the room. He was the last one to be ‘it’ when time was called in the first two games, so he’s determined not to be last ‘it’ again.

“Don’t even think about it” Rhodey says when Tony turns to look at him.

“I’m thinking about it” Tony takes a step closer, “you can’t run like you used to, not in those leg braces”.

“So, you’ll take advantage of a disabled person?”

“A disabled person, no. You…yes” Tony tags Rhodey before the man could attempt to run.

“Colonel Rhodes is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y says.

“Well, as…_fun_ as this little get-together has been…bye” Tony says before hurrying to the elevator.

Rhodey turns to look at Vision, “don’t you even dare phase Vision. You know the rules”.

“The rules state that I can not phase through a person tagging me…it said nothing of the floor” Vision says before phasing through the floor.

“You son of a…” Rhodey mutters before turning to Clint.

“What?” Sam blinks in confusion while the other rogues just stare in confusion.

“We really need to clarify the rules more” Clint snorts, dodging Rhodey’s attempt at tagging him, “why are you going after me? Peter is right there, and he is the one that brought us back into this”.

“You were already this” Peter points out, ignoring the rogues, who all look like they are questioning their sanity. Well, all but the Widow. She’s keeping her composure pretty well, though her eyes have narrowed slightly like she’s trying to assess and understand the situation. She can keep trying because Peter’s not going to explain. The rogues can all stay in ‘what the fuck’ land. “Anyway, it was _your_ daughter who started the game back up again. Lila came out of nowhere and tagged Harley while we were waiting for Ned and MJ to get here”.

Okay…so maybe he may have talked Lila into starting the game as an excuse to get his dad away from the rogues, but it’s not like anyone can prove that. Plus, the game would have started at some point anyway, it always does. He simply hurried it up.

“The kids right, once you’re in this game…you’re in for life” Rhodey shrugs, “and besides…I’m not tagging my nephew. That’s something Happy would do, because Happy sucks”.

“Uncle Happy can be kind of cool” Peter shrugs.

Rhodey scoffs, “not as cool as me”.

“Of course”, Peter nods as he grins at Rhodey’s jealousy.

“Was that sarcasm?” Rhodey raises an eyebrow at Peter.

“Uh, no?” Peter takes a step back from Rhodey when the man steps closer, “…uncle Rhodey…remember, you’re not tagging me”.

“I’m not so sure now” Rhodey tags Peter before the boy could beg for mercy.

“Little Boss is now it”.

Peter stares at Rhodey with heart broken puppy eyes filled with betrayal.

“Shit…he’s doing the damn eyes again!” Clint groans.

“Nope, not looking” Rhodey looks at the ground as he walks, as fast as his legs will move, out of the room.

“Kid…” Clint whines as Peter fixes him with the look. After 30 seconds of pouting from Peter, Clint sighs “I’m convinced you’re evil”, Clint hold out his arm for Peter to tag.

“Robin Hood is now it”.

“Thanks Mr Hawkeye”.

“Whatever, I’m going to tag Cooper…or Scott” Clint mutters, taking off out of the room.

“Again…what?” Sam asks.

Peter’s puppy-face has disappeared and in its place is a hard look, “I think it’s fairly obvious what’s going on. We’re playing tag”.

“…tag?” Sam blinks, still completely confused because…really? They’re playing tag?

“I’m sure you’ve heard of the game”.

“I know the game, that’s not what I’m confused about-“ Sam is cut off by the sound of a loud crash and yelp.

“Stuart Little is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y’s voice interrupts.

“Mr Antman is really bad at this game” Peter shakes his head before turning his attention back to the rogues. “Dad talked to me, and while he explained how it was everyone’s fault...I still don’t like you” Peter says bluntly. He looks at Sam and Wanda, “you two are kind of okay…I guess”, he looks at Natasha, “you’re less okay, but I hate you less then _him_”. Peter doesn’t even bother looking at Steve.

“Peter-“ Steve begins.

“Sorry, I’ve got a game to dominate” Peter turns around, leaving the rogues still completely confused as to what is going on.

“But seriously, what the hell?” Sam shouts after the boy, because even the confirmation that they are playing tag does nothing to actually explain anything.

* * *

“Thank God! Pepper save me” Tony yells, racing towards his fiancée, who has only just walked into the compound.

Pepper steps back, slightly startled. Happy had just driven her home from SI and she’s ready to unwind…however, she’s clearly forgot who she’s in a relationship with. There is no unwinding when in a relationship with Tony Stark.

She looks at Happy, just in case something is going on, but the man just shrugs. She wonders if one of the…_others_ have done something, though she’s pretty sure that Tony would be in his lab having a panic attack if they’d done something, and he doesn’t seem panicked.

“What’s wrong?” Pepper asks, looking Tony up and down, just to make sure that he’s okay.

“The small people are ganging up on me” Tony moves to hide behind Pepper as Peter, Harley, Cooper, Ned and MJ run towards them.

“How many teenagers are here?” Happy asks, his voice filled with horror.

“Too many…I realised too late just what I did by allowing them all to get together” Tony mutters.

“Hey Pepper” Peter grins, coming to a stop in front of her.

“Peter and others. What’s going on?” Pepper raises and eyebrow, a small smile forming. She recognises Cooper and she’s pretty sure that’s Harley, who she’s seen briefly when Tony has facetimed the boy. The others, she’s only seen in pictures before, but she knows those are Peter’s friends.

“Virginia Potts, also known as Pepper Potts” MJ’s eyes widen just slightly, “I’m Michelle, you can call me MJ-“.

“I’m not allowed to call you MJ” Tony frowns.

“You’re not Pepper Potts” MJ says simply before returning to Pepper, “you are absolutely amazing and it’s an honour to meet you. How you’ve gotten where you are in a business full of testosterone is inspiring for others, especially girls”.

Pepper remembers Peter telling her that his friend views her as an icon but hearing the compliments in person was something else. Sure, she’s had a few others praise her for her work, but most people thought she just slept her way up to the top. So, it’s nice to hear that young girls look up to her.

“Thank you, MJ” Pepper smiles at her.

“You didn’t give me that kind of hero worship” Tony complains.

“I think you’re awesome!” Ned says, his voice full of awe.

“At least someone here appreciates me. Thanks Ted” Tony says and everyone, but Ned, rolls their eyes.

“You know what Ned’s name is” Peter says exasperatedly, “why do you pretend that you don’t?”

“Ironman can call me whatever he wants” Ned says in wonder.

MJ pulls out a little notebook from her back pocket and holds it out to Pepper, “could I have an autograph?”

Pepper blinks, shocked for a moment because no one has ever asked her for an autograph before. That was Tony’s department. “Sure”, she takes MJ’s notebook.

“I could give you an autograph, if you want” Tony says.

“No” MJ barely pays Tony any attention, “thank you” MJ grins as Pepper hands the notebook back.

“Call me crazy…but from both now and our first meeting, I get the feeling that you aren’t a fan of mine” Tony steps out from behind Pepper slightly and is definitely not pouting at the teen.

Harley snorts, “yeah, I’d say you aren’t in her top 10”.

“Shut up, Potato”.

“You still haven’t explained why you’re called Potato” Cooper looks at Harley.

“It’s a long story. I’ll explain later, after we’re finished” Harley says nonchalantly.

“Which brings us back to my earlier question; what’s going on? And why is Tony running in terror from you?” Pepper asks, amusement in her voice.

“I wouldn’t say terror” Tony mumbles.

“Oh, that reminds me” MJ says, putting her notebook back in her pocket, “tag”.

Everyone freezes as MJ has the balls to tag Pepper, something no one has done yet. Mostly because she hasn’t been around during their previous games…however, had she been around, no one would have ever tagged her. Tony, Peter and Happy are watching with slight fear.

“Mrs Boss is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y announces with slight trepidation.

Pepper stares at MJ with a blank face for a few seconds before a smirk breaks out on her face, “nice move”, she praises MJ.

“I genuinely love you and wanted that autograph…I just figured, two birds one stone”.

“I like your train of thought. We should sit down and talk sometime”.

“I would die happy”.

Tony shivers, “…did you feel that?” He asks to no one in particular, “that felt like the world just got taken over”.

Pepper rolls her eyes while MJ smirks, “that sounds about right…I have big plans”.

“Peter you need to control your girlfriend, she’s going to corrupt mine and Pep’s already dangerous enough on her own”.

“Th-she…I don’t…we-we’re not-me and MJ…we just f-friends” Peter stutters. Wide eyed and red faced.

“Subtle” Coopers coughs before yelping as Peter kicks him.

“Boy’s behave” Pepper reprimands before tagging Tony.

“Boss is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y says.

“Can people stop tagging me, I have a heart condition! I can’t be running around” Tony huffs.

“Considering those jeans are looking a little tight, you should think about doing some running” Harley grins evil-ly.

“They are not tight!”

“Ever since you found out about Peter you have been eating and sleeping a bit more regularly” Pepper points out.

“So if you’re eating more, it is possible then that you could have gain a bit of wei-“ Peter begins.

“Is no one on my side?!” Tony cuts him off.

“I am!” Ned raises his hand.

“Right, Ed is my kid now. Peter you’re fired”.

Peter huffs “you can’t fire me as your kid”.

“Can I tag you Fred?”

“Absolutely” Ned nods.

Tony looks back at Peter, “then yes I can fire you. Welcome to the family Jed” Tony says as he tags Ned.

“Ned is now it” F.R.I.D.A.Y says.

“You are so sad” MJ shakes her head at Ned.

“I don’t care, Ironman likes me”.

“Hey, Pete. Remember when you used to hero worship me?” Tony asks rhetorically, “I miss that”.

Harley tilts his head, “the weight of your ego must give you a bad back”.

“No, his old age gives him a bad back” Peter says and everyone tries to hold in their laughter.

Tony splutters at the betrayal before pointing at Peter “You are disowned“, he turns to Harley, “and you are going home”.

“No, I’m not. You love me too much mechanic” Harley pokes his tongue out.

Tony snorts “and how do you know that?”

“Because we’re connected” Harley gives Tony a shit eating grin.

“…should have seen that one coming”.

“And I know you won’t disown me because Pepper wouldn’t let you” Peter matches Harley’s shit eating grin with one of his own.

“Exactly” Pepper smiles at the boys, “now, stop being mean to the kids”.

“They started it!” Tony cries at the injustice.

“They’re children” Happy rolls his eyes.

“Hey! You have to be nice to me, I’m your boss”.

“Pepper is my main boss” Happy says simply.

“I’m feeling unloved”.

“Mood” Cooper says and the other teens nod in agreement, “sooo…are we getting back to the game?”

Coopers question reminds the everyone about the game. All the teenagers stare at Ned for a moment before bolting in the same direction down the hall. Well, all but MJ. She remains at the entrance with Pepper, Tony and Happy.

Ned looks at MJ and she raises an eyebrow, daring him to tag her. Ned gulps and decides to chase after the others.

“I’m free now if you want to talk” MJ grins at Pepper, who grins back.

“Oh God” Tony mutters, his life flashing before his eyes, while Happy quickly turns around and leaves.

* * *

“The time is up, and the game is over. Stuart Little is the last one it” F.R.I.D.A.Y announces.

“Seriously! I lost again!” Scott yells. 

* * *

It’s late Sunday night and everything is quiet, which is a big difference from how the past few days have been.

The rouges are on their floor and, at least for the moment, aren’t being a bother.

Clint, Scott and their kids left after lunch since they were all driving back to their homes and it would take them awhile.

Harley left after dinner, with Happy dropping him off at the airport for him to be taken home by Tony’s private plane, with the promise that he’d be returning soon.

So now it’s just Peter, Tony, Pepper and Rhodey, though his uncle has already gone to his room to answer the sweet call of sleep.

As Peter walks towards the living room, he can hear the gentle tones of the television. Entering, he sees Pepper sitting on the couch, her legs curled underneath her, with a glass of wine as she flicks through a magazine. She’s clearly not watching the television, just using it as background noise.

“Hey Pepper” Peter greets, making his way over to the couch.

“Hey sweetheart” Pepper smiles at the teen. She closes the magazine and places it on the coffee table along with her wine. She then pats the space next to her on the couch for Peter to take the hint. “How was your day with Tony and Harley?”

Peter sits down next to Pepper, “great, Harley is a genius and he’s hilarious. I can’t wait for the next time he visits”.

“That’s great” Pepper runs a hand through Peter’s hair, “I know that Tony was a bit anxious about you two meeting, in case you didn’t get along”.

“I don’t really have many friends…I mean, the others at school don’t hate me or anything. They’re friendly and we get on…” Peter stutters to save himself. He doesn’t want Pepper telling his dad that he has no friends because then he’ll set up more playdates. He makes a mental note never to let his dad find out about Flash.

“There’s nothing wrong with only having a few friends” Pepper says, “it’s better to have one good friend than having ten bad friends”.

“That’s what Aunt May always used to say”.

“Well, great minds think alike” Pepper smirks, “where is your father?”

“He told me to come up since we’re done for the day. He’s just tidying up”.

“So, he’ll probably be down there for another hour then” Pepper rolls her eyes.

“Yep”.

They fall into a comfortable silence, watching the random TV show playing. Pepper rests her arm on the couch behind Peter and occasionally run’s her hand through the boy’s curls out of habit. With the hair stroking and his own neediness, Peter let’s himself sink into the couch with his head resting on Pepper’s shoulder.

“How do you stand having…_those_ people live here? They hurt dad” Peter says quietly.

“I know” Pepper sighs, resting her head on top of Peters, “I don’t like them being here and I wish they weren’t”.

“You can kick them out. You’re Pepper Potts, you can do anything”.

“Thank you for the confidence boost” Pepper smiles, threading her hand through his hair, “I trust in Tony and what he thinks is best…some people would say that trusting him isn’t the wisest decision, and those people would be the ones who don’t know him. Tony didn’t make this decision light heartedly. He thought long and hard about it, and while this isn’t the outcome that we w_ant_, it’s the outcome that we _need_. That the world needs”.

“Did you have to use logic? Can we pretend that there’s no logical reason for them to be here and send them away?”

“I wish sweetie, but your father is the most stubborn person I’ve ever met. Even _I _still struggle getting him to do things when he doesn’t want to, and I’ve been dealing with him for as long as you’ve been alive”.

“Fine, I’ll put up with them” Peter grumbles. “However, if they ever hurt dad again…you’d give me an alibi for the time of their deaths…I mean an alibi for when they went ‘missing’, right?”

“I’d make sure you had 20 alibis if they go missing” Pepper says, “On an unrelated note…I know some excellent cleaners, who are great at getting out stains”.

Peter grins.

They fall into a comfortable silence again, with Peters eyes falling heavier and heavier as Pepper’s fingers twirl in his hair. It doesn’t take long for Peter to fall asleep on Peppers shoulder.

Pepper turns her head at the sound of footsteps, “I figured you’d be lost in the lab for another hour”.

“It’s not as much fun when Pete’s not down there, and both you and May would kill me if I let him be in the lab past 11” Tony shrugs, making his way into the room.

“I’ve finally found your kryptonite” Pepper smirks, “next time you don’t do as your told, I’ll take away lab time with Peter”.

“That would be a cruel punishment”, Tony stops walking at the sight of Peter fast asleep and curled against Pepper. He raises an eyebrow, “should I be jealous?” a smirk playing on his lips.

“Very” Pepper jokes.

“It’s late, we should get him into bed” Tony sighs as he steps closer to wake Peter up.

“No, don’t wake him” Pepper says giving Peter’s hair a final stroke, “he’s had a long weekend, just let him sleep. Go get him a pillow and a blanket”.

She slowly shuffles across the couch, letting Peter gently lower on the seat of the couch. Once she’s out from under the boy, she moves to take Peter’s shoes off and put his feet on the couch. Tony comes back with Peter’s pillow and duvet.

“You could have just gotten a blanket” Pepper rolls her eyes. She takes the pillow and carefully slips it under Peter’s head.

“What if he gets cold? He can’t regulate his temperature like everyone else can” Tony says tucking Peter’s duvet around the boy.

“You have an AI who is constantly monitoring him” Pepper raises her eyebrow.

“His duvet is softer and will be more comfortable for him” Tony defends.

“Okay, mother hen” Pepper rolls her eyes as she steps back from the couch.

“I’m not mothering him” Tony grumbles under his breath and Pepper chooses to ignore him.

“Right, I think it’s time for bed ourselves” Pepper sigh before a yarn break out of her mouth. “Definitely time for bed”.

“Yeah…” Tony says but makes no move to stop watching his son sleep.

“Tony…are you okay? This weekend been hard on you too” Pepper asks softly.

“I’m fine” Tony takes a finial look at Peter before walking towards Pepper, “I’m fine and we’re fine. Everything’s going to be fine, even if it starts out a little rocky…I think we’re used to living with things being rocky”.

“That’s an understatement” Pepper snorts.

“Everything is going to work out just the way it’s supposed to” Tony squeezes Peppers hand as the walk to their room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that concludes series two!!!
> 
> Okay, first I should address the biggest thing and that's the lack of a punch between Peter and Steve. I know that most of you wanted Peter to punch Steve and just because he hasn’t done it yet, doesn’t mean he won’t in the future. For now, however, Tony isn’t going to let that happen because they have the ‘Spider-Man’ secret to keep safe.
> 
> A lot of other stuff did happen in this chapter though. We had Peter telling off Steve (woop woop), Harley arriving (woop woop) and the biggest game of tag yet (woop woop) to name some. We also had a cute little Peter and Pepper scene right at the end because I thought they needed a little bit of bonding.
> 
> So, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. It took me way longer then I meant it to, and again, I'm so sorry about that. Hopefully the length of it will make up for how long you guys had to wait, because this is the LONGEST chapter I've ever written. I just had so much I wanted to put in it.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed all the different thoughts that the characters had and that they were reasonably realistic, even if maybe they were a little out of character at times. I found Natasha hard to write for, so that's something I'll have to work on. By hopefully it was all believable because that's important to me in my stories, is that you can believe it could actually happen like that.
> 
> I know that there may not be as much Tony and Peter time in this chapter, but you guys know me, I love those two so you know you'll get some more in the future.
> 
> Please kudos and bookmark if you enjoyed this story and feel free to leave a review on your thoughts. Also look out for the next part in this series. It will be titled 'And although this wave is stringing us along'.
> 
> Please everyone, with this horrible virus going around, please stay safe and indoors. Also a big thank you to the NHS and all the other people who have to continue going out and risking their health for everyone else like supermarket staff, postmen, cleaners, dustbin men, and so many others.
> 
> Stay safe guys :)

**Author's Note:**

> Now don't worry. I know most people want to see Peter confront the rouges and don't want Tony to forgive them easily, and I promise Tony isn't forgiving them. However, in my mind, Tony isn't as bothered by Scott and Clint as he would be if it was Steve and Natasha. While it would have hurt having Clint chose Steve over him, I think Tony is more open to giving Clint a second chance then anyone else. Although Tony is still going to take some time before he forgives Clint too.
> 
> Anyway, I hope that my writing was still in character for everyone and that you guys liked the start of the second series. If you did, please feel free to bookmark and kudos.


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